Ccj sent to old address

declanboyle365

In December last year I went to Blackpool with my friends and parked in a private car park where I paid for a ticket in full. When I came back to my car the next morning there was a parking ticket on it because I parked about half a yard outside the front of the bay. Bearing in mind there were 3 cars in a car park that holds about 40 cars so I was not obstructing anyone.

The private company sent me several letters asking me to pay a fine which I ignored as I thought it was completely unjust. However I moved out from the address at the end of May so stopped receiving their letters. I have recently had some post forwarded on to me where I can see I was supposed to attend court to defend this but I did not receive this as it was sent to my old address. I have since rang up the county court who confirmed I now have a CCJ against me and it is too late to defend this. I said that as I never received the letter I wanted the chance to defend myself. He said that the only option was to apply to the judge which costs £255 to ask him to hear my case. He said it would be up to the judge whether they would hear my case and I could apply to have the £255 refunded but it would not be guaranteed.

I was wondering if there is any advice anyone could give to help me as I don't have £255 and feel this is very unfair to charge me when I did not receive the letter and I have proof I did not live at that address at the time. Similarly, I feel very hard done by that this case has even gone to court as I paid for my parking in full and was not causing an obstruction to any vehicle.

Please can you give me any help at all.

sourcrates

Hi,

It's called a set aside motion, there is a £255,00 fee for this.

However, remission is available on this fee, dependant on your earnings, this is the only way now to get this removed.

However this will only put you back to square one, the other side can re-issue the claim straight away.

Fee remission form here :

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/537215/ex160-eng.pdf

N244 set aside form here :

https://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/HMCTS/GetForm.do?court_forms_id=484

declanboyle365

If I pay the £255 and explain it was sent to an old address will the judge remove the ccj or will i need to go to court to get the ccj removed?

Shakin_Steve

I'm afraid that you must take most of the blame for this situation yourself. You ignored letters from the parking company, something you should never do. If you thought the charges were unjust, you should have challenged them.
Then you moved house without telling the parking company, no doubt hoping that they wouldn't be able to trace you. Again, not a wise move. You can't just move without giving a forwarding address and then claim ignorance of any ongoing disputes. I'm sure you told your bank and utility company you were going.
I, personally, don't think you have a leg to stand on, but you can certainly try.

sourcrates

declanboyle365 wrote: »

If I pay the £255 and explain it was sent to an old address will the judge remove the ccj or will i need to go to court to get the ccj removed?

If you admit the amount claimed against you, it may be more difficult (although not impossible) to successfully apply to set aside judgment because one of the factors a court will consider is whether or not you have a real prospect of successfully defending the claim if it goes to a full trial. By not paying it, you may simply be delaying the inevitable.

The court will sometimes set aside a judgment even if you admit the amount claimed but you will need to persuade the judge that there’s a good reason, eg the claim form was sent to the wrong address or you were away from home when the court papers were served, so you didn’t have the chance to respond.

You will have to attend a hearing normally yes, and give a convincing argument as to why set aside should be granted.

declanboyle365

I just feel that this is very harsh. When I initially got the parking ticket, I went online to gather opinion and was told to just ignore private company parking tickets until you receive anything from the court. I didn't tell the private company my new address as I didn't want them badgering me for something I didn't feel that i owed. An online article from Martin Lewis from money saving expert said not to contact the parking company as this can be seen as an admission of guilt. I thought the court papers would be sent to my new address as I am registered on the electoral register and council tax there but this was not the case. If I pay the fine is there any way of getting the CCJ removed as this will effect my mortgage when I come to renew in 2 years time and will end up costing me thousands in the long run?

sourcrates

declanboyle365 wrote: »

If I pay the fine is there any way of getting the CCJ removed as this will effect my mortgage when I come to renew in 2 years time and will end up costing me thousands in the long run?

If you had paid within 30 days of judgement the CCJ would not of been registered.

Your ONLY option now is apply for a set aside, or accept the situation.

fatbelly

The game changed in November last year when Parking Eye won their Supreme Court case against Barry Beavis. From then on the advice was definitely not to ignore, though it is possible you picked up some earlier advice from somewhere.

Anyway, you probably do have potential defences and it is worth exploring these with the parking ticket board here, and maybe pepipoo, so you can make an outline argument on your N244. It will take a fair amount of work though.

You may get remission from the £255 if on a low income.

Another angle is that the ccj does not get recorded if paid off within a month, but maybe the ccj is already older than that.