Judment for Claimant

silly_bean

Hello. I have been reading many posts but can't quite find the advice or answer I am looking for.
I received a fine for overstaying at a Car Park at Chieveley Service Station back in 2014. I appealed to POPLA:

As the driver I am appealing this on the basis that this is not a genuine pre estimate of loss. The charge does not in any way reflect the cost of the alleged breach and we believe this to be a penalty. I also believe you don’t have a contract in place with the landowner to issue parking charges. If you try and contend there is commercial justification for this, there is no court of record decision on the use of commercial justification involving consumers. County Court decisions as you are aware have no binding authority. Anything but a genuine pre estimate of loss is a penalty. I shall appeal to POPLA on the above points. Failure to send a POPLA code with a rejection letter will result in a complaint to the BPA who have advised this could result in Sanction points for the parking company in question. I have nothing further to add on this appeal. I therefore look forward to hearing from you shortly with either the POPLA code or confirming the charge has been cancelled.

This was rejected: Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your correspondence concerning your Charge Notice.

This PCN was issued legally and correctly according to the British Parking Association Approved Operators Scheme.

Given that the signage is displayed in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, the fact that you were seemingly unaware of this is not considered a mitigating circumstance for appeal.

The amount of the charge is well within BPA guidelines, and reflects the cost to our clients, both in terms of congestion caused at this site by drivers abusing the parking restrictions, and our fees for enforcing these restrictions, while installing and maintaining the necessary equipment to do so.

In light of this, on this occasion, your representations have been carefully considered and rejected.

We can confirm that we will hold the charge at the current rate of £50 for a further 14 days from the date of this correspondence, after which the full amount will be due.

Yours faithfully,

CP Plus Limited

Although we have now rejected your appeal, you may still have recourse to appeal to Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA), an independent appeals service. POPLA will only consider cases on the grounds that the Parking Charge exceeded the appropriate amount, that the vehicle was not improperly parked or had been stolen, or that you were otherwise not liable for the Parking Charge. To appeal to POPLA, please go to their website (popla) and follow the instructions. If you would rather deal with this matter by post, please contact our appeals office and we will send you the necessary paperwork.

Your POPLA reference code is 1773424005

Please note that if your appeal does not relate to the above criteria or is rejected by POPLA for any reason, you may be requested to pay the charge at the full amount and will no longer qualify for payment at the reduced rate.

I then had a few other letters and demands which I ignored and then had a form (I can't recall what it was) where I was asked to send my appeal in. (Re: HM Court & Tribunals Service) which I did and copied in: (moto)

This seems to have been ignored and now I have received a Judgment for Claimant letter which is issued from Jmw Solicitors Llp in Manchester saying I need to now pay £267.02. I have emailed them asking why the appeal has been ignored and he said: "Judgment has therefore been entered correctly in this matter and we would therefore require payment in the amount of £267.02 to satisfy it. If paid by 20 November 2016 (cleared funds being received in our office by this date) we will write to the Court asking them for the Judgment to not be registered against you.

Our bank details to assist you with payment are;
blah blah

Do I pay? What can they do and will they take me to court? I'm thinking just pay and get rid but my principles think it's so wrong.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice

Coupon-mad

They have taken you to court and you lost. This wasn't an appeal, it was your court papers, quite obviously:

I then had a few other letters and demands which I ignored and then had a form (I can't recall what it was) where I was asked to send my appeal in. (Re: HM Court & Tribunals Service) which I did and copied in: (moto)

So where did you send the defence? Surely you followed what the court papers said? Where did you send it?

You will have to be far more on the case if you are to get this judgment set aside. You can do that by paying the court £255 - which wipes the CCJ off your record - but your research so far has been dire and you should never have said who was driving in 2014.

If you get it set aside you can then defend the case but are you up to the work involved, burning the midnight oil and reading what the court directions say and following them and arguing your case at a hearing? CP Plus almost never try court so it seems they've picked you because your appeal was weak (sorry but it was).

If you'd never said who was driving you'd be in a very strong position and if you'd appealed well, CP Plus would have cancelled it in 2014!

Guys_Dad

Look up "Beavis" on this forum or just Google it.

You were using a failed argument with GPEOL.

Half_way

Judgement for claimant usually means they have taken you to court, and they have won ( in default) and you have lost.
what exactly have you received both from the parking company, popla, ( so called) debt collectors, and the courts service?

Its either you dont quite know what your dealing with a big clue is you have described it as a fine - if you knew what you are dealing with you would know what it really is, or something fishy is going on.

Cp plus should be easy to beat at POPLA and at several other stages before and after as well

please list everything you have received surrounding this incident

waamo

I hate to say but I can't see any grounds for a set aside. You seem to have received the court papers and sent in some sort of defence,albeit a very poor one.

You may well have to take this one on the chin.

silly_bean

Thank you very much for your prompt replies. I really don't have a clue what I have done with the papers but I recall them saying I could email it, which I did and no one replied I just got some message about how busy it was and that they would reply soon. I missed a vital stage it seems.

I was in the service station with a customer and never realised I needed to get a ticket after two hours of being there, never saw any sings and on returning to look, they were there but tiny and I am always rushing about so would need to be a bit more obvious. I asked in the service station when I went back and they said it is a telephone payment after 2 hours (I was 2.5 hours total).

I think I will just pay it as it's stressful but it's a warning not to ignore or if you intend to, get a good case!! Greedy, nasty parking pigs - what happened to pay and display or parking for customers! All the time buying and within the building, which is what has annoyed me most.

silly_bean

I sent it to HM Court & Tribunals Service
like they requested. I probably didn't do something correctly as I'm the world's worst busy self-employed hectic woman who has too much to do and not enough time to spend on things properly. Harsh lesson to learn.

silly_bean

It was a fine for overstaying 2 free hours at a service station while I was attending a meeting inside spending a fortune on the coffees and breakfast for a client - expensive mistake but didn't realise you had a time limit

Half_way

There may be grounds for a set aside, that is if you have indeed received a default judgement against you, some PPCs and un scrupulous debt collectors will send out letters that look like default judgements, that is why it is important to find out exactly what you have had.

Another issue is that even after paying a CCJ it will remain on your credit record for 6 years and show as Satisfied, you have said that you are self employed a CCJ satisfied or not could have an effect on your ability to get credit, or even have a negative impact on your business/line of work.

Unfortunately you will need to take some time out to get your head round this.

Before you even think about paying up start researching now, look at everything you have been sent and organise it all.


Again in your post above you have used the fine word, it is not a fine you have not been Fined


My advice would be to run a few credit checks on yourself to see what comes up, and then to research this - this will take time, keep a track of how much time you are spending on it it may come in useful later.

you should also look at complaining to Moto Hospitality about the actions of their agents, as well as looking into the possibility of issuing a counter claim against Moto ( or whatever company it is at that MSA) for your costs expenses and time in dealing with this ( hence the keep a time sheet advice)

Coupon-mad

silly_bean wrote: »

I sent it to HM Court & Tribunals Service
like they requested. I probably didn't do something correctly as I'm the world's worst busy self-employed hectic woman who has too much to do and not enough time to spend on things properly. Harsh lesson to learn.

Can you find the acknowledgement email? Can you locate your sent email and tell us where you sent it? Seems odd that you emailed it seeing as I don't think the court papers list that as a way to submit a defence (although it is possible I didn't think that claim paperwork offers it by email so how could you have known?

Are you sure you didn't email your defence to CP Plus? Hate to ask but they send an acknowledgement email...

You are the first person I've ever heard of who was sued by them, yet they are so dead easy to beat on first appeal we laugh at their PCNs here. I hope you can resolve this and get it set aside.

The_Deep

... not enough time to spend on things properly.

Indeed. The judgement came about because you took your eye of the ball.


My advice would be to engage a qualified person to get this sorted. As a self employed person can you afford a stain on your credit history? Do this with your tax returns and you could find yourself in deep doo doo.