Court defence help requested (quite urgent)

deepcomuk

Firstly let me say Hi. I have been a browser of this site for a number of years and thanks to some of the tips and pointers listed herein I have successfully had invalid parking tickets cancelled at POPLA in the past.

Unfortunately I am now in a slightly awkward position whereby I had a ticket send to me at an old address in 2014 after I had moved out. The claimant (Excel Parking) then proceeded to send a couple of letters before taking me to court in June 2016 which resulted in a CCJ in default as having never received any of the paperwork I was completely unaware of this.

Upon finding out about this a couple of months ago I followed the process to have the judgement set aside and had the first court case last week during which the judge agreed to have the judgement set aside and awarded me the costs (£255) that I had paid for the privilege.

Unfortunately he did say that looking at the initial evidence I had presented, whilst this was enough to have the case set aside it was 'in his opinion' not enough to have the original parking ticket cancelled (something I had also requested as part of the hearing) and as such he has given me until early next week in order to submit a revised defence against the initial ticket (or to come to an agreement with Excel parking to make payment for it of course). I have yet to receive any papers from the court or from Excel since the hearing but I am rather annoyed that they were able to affect my otherwise impeccable credit record albeit for a temporary period and as such I would like to try and defend the initial parking claim and if possible claim my costs for such against them in order to make them equally frustrated as I have been.

Obviously if they have a good case against me and I cannot easily defend the initial claim then I would rather pay them the parking fine in order that this will go away but I'm much prefer not to if there is little risk of me losing in the court - For reference their initial claim for their costs (which the Judge dismissed) was over £1200 so I wouldn't want to risk that again if another court hearing was required.

I will attach the relevant witness statement and all evidence as required and am hoping that they have made a mistake in their POFA or similar that would be an 'easy win' although I doubt this would be the case, but am hoping that someone with much more experience in these matters would be willing to assist.

Many Thanks
Andy.

System

Car park. Reason for ticket.

Guess is Peel and non-payment

deepcomuk

I have linked redacted copies of some of the documents sent from Excel Parking's solicitors (BD Legal) via Onedrive here - 1drv.ms/f/s!ApKoU1fgsvSC7lJXNg9nb6e5yFYv

As a new user I cannot post links so the above address will need https adding in front.

I have the original PDF's sent from BD Legal whiich are of better quality however these are not redacted so I wouldn't want to share these in a public facing forum of course.

deepcomuk

Hi IamEmanresu,

According to the information they provided my car was parked in a pay and display car park without a ticket being purchased at all (machine needed registration entering they say). I cannot recall the incident from 2014 but doubt I drove into a car park and didn't pay anything at all so can only guess either it wasn't me driving (occasionally colleagues have use of my car) or the registration was entered incorrectly or similar.

The evidence pack they sent contains pictures of the parking signs but I don't see anything in the terms and conditions (which aren't greatly readable on the photos) that says you 'must enter the correct registration' or similar. I'm just trying to split the photos out of their pdf now so I can upload them to my onedrive share.

Carthesis

TWELVE HUNDRED POUNDS??

ONE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED NOTES???

Are they having a f**king laugh??!?

I presume this is them gradually adding more and more "costs" to it? How have they built up this cost? Or is it just a "magic number"?

Was it originally allocated to the small claims track when you didn't / couldn't attend and got the original CCJ?

deepcomuk

Hi Carthesis,

The original CCJ claim was for a few hundred which I knew nothing about. The Judge basically agreed to set aside and as such I the penalty will have gone back to £100 so technically I can pay Excel Parking (BD Legal) £100 and it will go away, with no CCJ anymore as that has already been set aside.

The £1286.42 was the costs that they were trying to claim for producing their witness statement and for attending court last week. The Judge basically dismissed them and said no chance to their representative and then awarded me the costs for the set aside fee I'd spent (£255). I didn't try and claim costs for time off work or anything else like that but I'm now in a position where I can either pay the £100 penalty and it will all go away (and they will pay me the £255 they owe me from the first hearing) OR I can defend the claim in full to save the £100 whilst also trying to bash them for my costs for the second hearing which will include my exorbatant fees for time etc. The risk is that if I go back to court but lose the second hearing then I will be forced to pay whatever costs they make up for that second hearing which I suspect will be similar to the costs they submitted for the first hearing. Hope that makes sense.

Hence the reason for posting on here was to try and get the opinion of those who are more experienced to basically say 'yeah you have a good chance' OR 'no, just pay the £100 and walk away'.

The breakdown of their costs is in the onedrive share I posted earlier. It includes hilarious things like £48.30 for a document that is basically just a sheet they used to add their costs together. It just really P*** me off that they feel they can get away with such tactics.

Andy.

Carthesis

Yeah - they can't do that. As in, my understanding is that legally they aren't allowed to do so, as there's a limit on costs.

Someone with far more knowledge than I will be able to inform you of exactly how and why they are taking the !!!!, which should go towards your case as unreasonable behaviour.

Carthesis

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5524286

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5516449

Otherwise, start reading. I've linked a couple of relevant threads to get you started getting your head around what you've got to do.

deepcomuk

Thanks, will take a look now.

System

just pay the £100 and walk away'.

You got a good deal out of the judge. The alternative is to spend hours on a defence and the possibility of the next judge finding against you. Court is a lottery. A bit like the NHS in that it's get them through as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

deepcomuk

Thanks IamEmanresu, I thought that might be the easiest option but it just seems a little unfair to have to give them anything considering the circumstances (plus the Judge only put me back to the level I was before paying for the set aside so I'd still but ultimately out of pocket). I was half hoping that someone would look at the notice to the registered keeper that I shared and realise that it wasn't correctly worded and was therefore inadmissible for POFA or something but I guess that isn't the case.