Civil Enforcement Ltd - Debt Recovery Letters

Coupon-mad

They will drop it when she robustly defends their small claim in a couple of months time.

CEL always do (not even a hearing, nothing follows). That's when these are won, if people miss the chance to kill them off at appeal stage.

lowe712131

Hi Everyone. Just to finish off this story, I have just had the Parking Charge cancelled!
Was getting absolutely nowhere with Civil Enforcement, despite having proof from the actual LANDOWNER that my daughter was there on official business!
Anyhow, I contacted the NHS Trust who run the Clinic, they have a Estates division who look after this, and by my reckoning, quite frequently! I got the name of the correct person to contact and sent a letter (not an email), with photocopies of all the correspondence to date.
They sent an email back a few days later, saying it had been cancelled. This was followed up by a letter from CEL confirming the cancellation. Is that victory I smell???
Anyway, for anyone interested, this is the letter I sent them :-




FAO (Removed by Forum Team)

7th July 2017
Without Prejudice.


Dear (Removed by Forum Team),


I am writing on behalf of my daughter, ************, with regard to a parking ticket she received at Cross Street Clinic in Burton on Trent in February this year. I spoke to someone in your office last week and they told me to write to you with the details, as I am getting nowhere with Civil Enforcement Ltd. and it is all getting very stressful.


Amy attended a drop-in clinic at Cross Street on February 7th 2017 where she parked in the car park for 53 minutes. A month later, we received a Parking Charge Notice through the post from Civil Enforcement Ltd., advising that she owed them £75 as the car park is only for authorised persons only. The PCN number is 1064826192 and is dated 7/2/17 (Attachment A). We received the Notice to Keeper on 7/3/17, 30 days after the date of the alleged parking.


We sent CEL an email, informing them that she was engaged in authorised activity at the Clinic and, as such, she did not owe them anything and that we refute the Parking Charge. It appears you are supposed to register for parking inside the reception area; but this is not very well explained and, as my daughter had only passed her driving test 3 weeks prior, she assumed that registering at the clinic was sufficient to ‘sign in’.


This did not work and CEL sent another letter, stating the PCN still stood and she still owed them the Parking Charge (Attachment C). At this point, they offered a case number for referral to POPLA if we wanted to appeal and have the case independently reviewed. I didn’t think it would be necessary to go through the Appeals procedure, as she actually went to Cross Street and got a letter off them at the Clinic to state she was indeed at there that day on official business (Attachment . We sent this letter to CEL, thinking that would be the end of it, however they will not accept this and are still proceeding with enforcement of the PCN. Unfortunately, in going down this route, it took longer than 30 days and the time limit for the referral number ran out, so we no longer have the Appeal route open to us. CEL have refused to send another number and have effectively ceased all communication regarding this matter (Attachment D).


We have now received a Notice Before Action (Attachment E), stating they intend to take us to court over this PCN, which I find utterly ridiculous, considering the evidence we have put in front of them. However, their letters are getting more and more threatening and it seems they do indeed want to take this to court.


I understand that you, as the landowner, employ CEL as your agent to operate the car park at the Clinic, so you have the authority to cancel this charge and put a stop to this before it goes any further. Hence, I would respectfully ask if you could contact CEL and get them to drop this PCN and stop sending threatening letters. This has already caused both me and my daughter a great deal of unnecessary distress and, whilst I have no reservations about fighting this in court, it seems ridiculous that it should go that far when it is wholly unwarranted and will only end up costing everybody money.


On a whole, this has really upset my daughter and I’m worried it may adversely affect her choice in going to the Clinic in the future, which of course would be bad news for everyone. I thoroughly understand the need to enforce parking measures to prevent unauthorised parking on your site, but when simple mistakes have been made it shouldn’t have to get to this level to resolve it. I would really appreciate it if you could get involved and put an end to this whole episode.


Please do not hesitate to contact me should you need any further information, I may not have covered everything above so please let me know if you need to discuss. My mobile number is ************* and my email address is ************************




Well it seemed to do the trick anyway, so if you are in a similar position, always try to contact the landowner - it is worth a shot and might be an easy way to put a stop to it! I guess the moral of the story should be to go down the POPLA route in good time, but even if that doesn't happen, there are other avenues available!
Thanks everyone for your help.

beamerguy

lowe712131 wrote: »

Well it seemed to do the trick anyway, so if you are in a similar position, always try to contact the landowner - it is worth a shot and might be an easy way to put a stop to it! I guess the moral of the story should be to go down the POPLA route in good time, but even if that doesn't happen, there are other avenues available!
Thanks everyone for your help.

Well done, there are more ways to skin a cat

In the case of CEL, skinning a cowboy

Coupon-mad

I contacted the NHS Trust who run the Clinic, they have a Estates division who look after this, and by my reckoning, quite frequently! I got the name of the correct person to contact and sent a letter (not an email), with photocopies of all the correspondence to date.

They sent an email back a few days later, saying it had been cancelled. This was followed up by a letter from CEL confirming the cancellation. Is that victory I smell???

Well done - that's a great example of a complaint letter to an NHS Clinic or similar, for others to adapt.

That Clinic will regret their choice of ex-clamper. Even if they kick CEL out they will likely suffer the same as the Co-op and other landowners, which is aggressive 'revenge court claims' against (in this case) staff and patients in future. This is a VERY nasty mistake by the NHS Clinic Facilities Manager with potentially longterm repercussions and also contrary to Government policy for NHS car parks.

I would reply thanking her, but telling her what happened in other CEL revenge claim situations (especially the Co-op who appear to have been raped and pillaged over it by CEL). They WILL regret this awful decision and appear to have carried out no due diligence.

BTW for peace of mind, I hope you and your DD have sussed that next time, the blue writing first appeal (the one in the NEWBIES thread) sent from the Registered keeper to CEL, sees them cancel immediately in most cases and if not, we always win at POPLA against them because they can't hold keepers liable and are stuffed, if you play it the right way.

lowe712131

Yes thanks, it will be easier if it happens again. It is quite daunting the first time round - when you start trying to read up on what to do, there is an abundance of information out there (and not always correct or sensible!). This site has been a great help - it probably would have been different if I'd have come here first.
Thanks again to all.
Cheers