County court judgment against the wife over a year old

mrelliott

Afternoon, after a week browsing a load of great website (parking cowboys,parking prankster pepipoo and a load of others) also buying parking prankster county court claim,self help book, I'm still concerned about a few things. I have read the newbie section and still at a bit of a loss so I'll give a quick summary of the situation my wife is in.
Last may she pulled into the range car park Shirley Southampton and waited 50 minutes for the store to open bought her stuff and left. 2 weeks ago we receive a letter from parkingeye eye stating they have been sending letters out to her old address asking for £165. But as she never replied because she had moved address ( and informed DVLA) they filled a ccj against her and this was enforced last December. We're not worried about this as we have evidence proving dvla sold them the wrong address. We are also confident we can win this with all the available defences available. The concerns we have 1. Preparing a witness statement for court (parking pranksters skeleton statement link is not working). What do we include and what's the layout of the letter? Also our other concern is it costs us £155 to get the ccj set aside. The fine is £165 , and it's my understanding that the judge would not normally reward costs, as it's seen as a court process and not one that can be rewarded. So as much as I hate to say it unless we can be convinced that we will get our money back we might end up paying parking eye,and putting up with a satisfied ccj on her name. So if any one has any advice we would be extremely grateful.
Chris

Coupon-mad

The keeper could always reclaim the £155 from the Range later if you end up out of pocket. Seriously!

Costs can be claimed up to £90 for a full day's work missed to attend a hearing, if you win. I would do the set aside, we have indeed won cases set aside including one for that same Range store in Shirley - see this thread by lainieee:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4802567

As for your questions about witness statements etc., have you read all the links in post #5 of the NEWBIES sticky thread? All about small claims.

bazster

If you get it set aside and then win the subsequent hearing ParkingEye will have to refund your £155. No guarantee that you'll win though, it's a bit of a lottery.

If you do decide to pay I suppose you could demand that DVLA refunds you if you can prove it's their mistake that landed you in this mess. Get your MP to take it to the Parliamentary Ombudsman if necessary.

Have you emailed Pranky to tell him he's got a broken link and to ask if he can let you have the document?

mrelliott

I'm still not convinced about receiving a refund of £165 , especially as I will be arguing that I'm in a parking contract with the range ,but it's parkingeye that's made a claim against my wife. So I need a little more convincing on reclaiming the £165. I've emailed parky in regards to my situation, plus it's been note on r he parking prankster website. I also contacted parking apeals. Co.uk as they offer a £30 service to write up a witness statement and a skeletal defence. But when I enquired exact what they can provide and what it's need from us, he basically said "as you've researched it so much you should write up the witness statement " bit of a shame as we were willing to pay for their help. So if someone could send me a link to a witness statement I'd be very great full.
Thanks

BenefitMaster

I'd be happy to roll up and lay-rep this one, as its another Soton Range case. PE may even back off when they realise I'm going to be the rep.

OP should PM me for contact details.

bazster

Well no-one here is going to try to convince you, we've no idea whether you'll get your money back.

P.S. but your chances just improved dramatically.

Coupon-mad

Try using the 'search this forum' heading above the stickies (next to 'forum tools' on the right along the same line as 'new thread') as I think you will find this all covered before. When you use 'search this forum', always change the default search to 'SHOW POSTS' instead.

Put in £155 and you should then find all the recent cases talking about set asides and whether people got that fee back.

Put in 'witness statement' and see who has posted an example maybe. You might need to click on quite a few results for that one but make sure you always search to 'show posts' (not 'show threads').

mrelliott

My wife received a letter from ParkingEye the end of October last year (2014) stating that they have taken out a CCJ against her for a famous retail store. They say they sent out letters to an old address of hers and that as she did not respond so they sought the CCJ and won a default judgment in December 2013. Over a year ago. From advice from so many very nice people on money saving expert and other websites we were encouraged to fight this. My wife was 90% sure she updated her vc5 when she moved home, so we asked DVLA to provide proof of this. They returned photocopies of the vc5 dated one month after my wife had moved in. Although my wife had updated her driving licence and insurance she did not remember to update her vc5. So parking eye was sending information to the correct address. So the situation now is that we have a been granted an application at Court to apply for the CCJ to be set aside, (waiting for date) I’m confident with the help of many websites we can win the defence but I’m worried that the judge will now say that as they were sending the correspondences to the correct address that parking eye has nothing to answer for. I really appreciate it if you could point us in the right direction. Thankyou.
p.s I have look through the newbies notes and found mixed answers. Bought parking Prankster guide , emailed him , and lots of other research
Also in this process ive been contacted on two occasions from people from parking appeals offering their service as a lay rep , the first one told me after a few days to sort out my own witness statement consequently wasted a lot of our time. the second one promised to help out email back and forth promises of a phone call , not answering , again wasted a few days , and raising our hopes so be aware !

Half_way

Play your cards right and you should have a good chance.

Whats this famous retail store you speak of?
If i was in your situation I would be going all out in naming and shaming and when the CCJ is set asside and everything is done going for another attack on the store.
I would also be looking at reclaiming any costs from the Store as a result of their agents actions.
If this was/is Aldi then it will be interesting as its sometimes mentioned that Aldi/Parking Eye wont/dont do court.

Marktheshark

If you get a new hearing do a land registry search and check the contract is with the actual land owner as is listed with the land registry and becarful of similarities in name like.
Dodgy shopping mall shoppers scam LTD
Dodgy shopping mall holdings PLC

hoohoo

ParkingEye have set aside hearings almost every day so this is a common problem. It is their responsibility to do reasonable checks on the address they were using, and if they got no reply ever, then the reasonable assumption is that the address is wrong.

However, it greatly benefits ParkingEye to press on anyway, then only check the address once the CCJ has been awarded to them.

This is of course an unfair practice, and it should not be difficult to persuade a judge of this. It is PE's responsibility to get the address right BEFORE the court case, not AFTER it.