Civil enforcement Ltd missed 14 days claim form

parist

Hello,
I need some advice with regards to the above parking company issuing a Claim Form on the 7th April at the County Court Business Centre in Northampton which is signed Civil Enforcement Ltd (Claimant's Legal Representative)

The particulars of claim letter is signed by Ashley Cohen ( looks like a photocopy signature)

It is now 28th April so the 14 day deadline has been missed. This has only been brought to light to me by my elderly mother who is the registered owner of the vehicle and who is unsure how to proceed.

So I have taken it on board to help and hopefully sort it out for her.

I am currently reading through the NEWBIES section and various boards to get a handle on this situation.

Is it too late to register for MCOL? Seeing as the deadline for 14 days has passed.

Any help would be most aprreciated as it's causing her enough stress as it is and now I've got to deal with this as she hasn't a clue.

Many thanks

P..

parist

Can I also add all previous correspondence from Civil Enforcement Ltd had been ignored and that the claimed amount in the claim form is over £300 which includes legal representative's cost amounting to £50

catfunt

Others will be along with better advice in due course.

For now...
She is likely to have a default judgment against her by now. It may be possible to get a set-aside (search in this forum for that) - if that is successful, it restarts the process so that it can be defended in court.

A proper defence will probably see CEL discontinue - or, at worst - your mother paying rather less than £300+ (as those costs have been dramatically inflated) - probably the parking charge plus £25 court costs and £50 solicitors fee unless you can persuade the DJ to disallow that cost.

Redx

phone the court centre in Northampton and see if it can be acknowledged online to boost it by the extra 14 days allowed

if so, use one of the recent example defences and acknowledge it , making sure the example defence goes in before the 28 day deadline

there are plenty of example defences on here written this year, dont use anything older than say 6 months

but you need to find out if judgment has been awarded yet first

parist

Ok thanks Redx will contact court first for an extension.

parist

Getting a constant engaged tone.

Is it worth trying to respond via the money claim.gov.uk link and see if that works before I start on the defence letter?

Or should I really wait until I have spoken to the court by phone?

Redx

try the MCOL online system anyway

they are very busy and are usually engaged on phone calls , mainly due to the parking companies issuing tens of thousands of court claims I would imagine

so yes, try to acknowledge online, it cant do any harm trying

dont put anything in the defence box yet though

if unsure what you are doing , read post #2 of the NEWBIES thread and the BARGEPOLE posts , thoroughly

parist

Many thanks Redx.
Will try MCOL.

How on earth does the law allow such scams to continue and nothing is really done to lawfully rein in this kind of activity.

Redx

is a phrase we hear many times, and the government has been pondering it for over 2 years already , plus Teresa May decided to have this court case nightmare looked into in december last year, still waiting for that outcome too

parist

It has allowed us to fill in the MCOL and we got as far as confirmation of "Completed Acknowledgement of Service"

The MCOL was submitted today 28/04/2017 (unfortunately it was after 4pm) so it will probably be accepted from Tues 2nd May.

Am I correct in thinking if the Claim Form issue date was 07/04/2017 the day of service would be 12/04/2017 so 28 days from this date will be 10/05/2017.

Will we get acknowledgement of this via email?

parist

Also is the 5 days after issue of the claim form work or calendar days. I have presumed it is calendar days.

If it's work days then we are in luck because of the Easter bank holidays, the service day would fall on the 18th April 2017 !