Civil Enforcement Ltd County Court Claim

Rexelcentor

Hi all, I have received a County Court claim from CEL at the County Court Business Centre in Northampton.

The claim says it was issued on the 31st May but I only received it yesterday as we had moved house last month. We also received a "Particulars of Claim" which is dated 7th June so I'm not sure which date should be counted.

I have read the various threads on CEL defences and am confident that we could get it dropped using one of these defences as a template. However since the claim was issued on 31st May I am worried that we may have missed the deadline to respond and could already have defaulted. Any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Note that I haven't received any correspondence to suggest that we have defaulted.

I'm not allowed to post links as a new user but I have posted pictures of the claim and the particulars to imgur at these links (replace (dot) with .)
imgur(dot)com/a/vD1ud
imgur(dot)com/a/mjdVF


On a side note I spoke to the gym today where the alleged incident occurred and they have said that I should not pay and they will look into it for me, but again I'm worried they might not be able to do anything if it is too late.

Your help is really appreciated thanks in advance!

Quentin

Read up in the newbies faq thread near the top of the forum on court procedure


You need to act quickly (ie today!) and submit a defence in the hope they haven't requested judgement already. (You could already have a default ccj against you, meaning all the hassle and cost (£255) of trying to get it set aside)



(The claim was issued on 31/5/17: www.imgur.com/a/mjdVF - the 7th of June particulars you mention came from CEL www. http://imgur.com/a/vD1ud)

Keep on at the gym!

Rexelcentor

Update: I went on the court's money claim website and found that a judgement was issued 6 days ago (I actually received the claim letter yesterday since it was sent to an old address).

Should I try to have this set aside or should I just pay the claim? £325 for the claim vs £255?? (as Quentin says) to have it set aside?

Quentin

So it's too late to respond to the claim now, so forget submitting a defence today


You have grounds for a set aside as you knew nothing about the claim against you. You also need a defence for a set aside hearing to show the judge you have a case that should be heard in your defence


If you are successful with the set aside then CEL would have to start again if they wanted to pursue you again

Umkomaas

If you get it set aside and are able to successfully defend the original case, the judge can order the £255 to be paid to you by the claimant.

Your choices now seem to be:

1. Pay £325 before it impacts your credit rating, and write this off as 'down to experience'.

2. Pay £255 and apply for a set-aside on the basis of your late receipt of court documents. Again urgent to avoid this spilling over to your credit rating. Then start to put together a defence to the original Particulars of Claim.

3. If you have no need for any credit/lending for the next 6 years, you could ignore it, but this is tightrope territory, because some jobs can become untenable with a CCJ against a name and basic stuff like mobile phone contracts can be refused; the fallout is not exclusively credit-related.

As Q says above, keep on at the gym - you will need evidence of their support for the cancellation of this charge in order to give further weight to any defence you develop for 2 above.

Rexelcentor

Thanks for all the help - I'm so annoyed about this!!

I can't even get through to the court because all their phones are down this is a nightmare!

It feels extremely unfair that I have to pay £255 for a set aside when there was literally no chance for me to defend myself as I did not even know the claim existed until yesterday. Is there not any onus on the court to ensure the defendant actually receives court papers? I am on the electoral roll at my current address where I have lived for 2 years so it's not as if it's hard to prove that I don't live at the address where the papers were sent...

The address was my mum's address and as stated she moved last month so would also not have lived at this address by the time the papers came through the letterbox.

Am I just royally screwed though? I am leaning towards just paying the £325 as it's not much more than the £255 court fee (but it is guaranteed to end this without anything going on credit file).

What would you do in my shoes?

Umkomaas

Is there not any onus on the court to ensure the defendant actually receives court papers?

None whatsoever, I'm afraid. The parking company can only work with the address originally supplied to it by the DVLA. There are no updates provided when a change of address is notified to the DVLA. The PPC cannot go back at a later date to check the current address for a previous parking charge.

The address was my mum's address and as stated she moved last month so would also not have lived at this address by the time the papers came through the letterbox.

That seems a valid reason to apply for a set-aside, a far better one than if the claim and court papers had been received and totally ignored.

What would you do in my shoes?

We're a fightback forum, I'm surprised you asked.

You have to weigh everything up. £325 kills it - provided it hasn't already migrated to your credit file, if it has do not pay it as it will not improve your credit rating one iota. A set-aside is then the best option.

If you're going for a set-aside (before it migrates to your credit file), it's a risk. If you put together a strong defence (and there are many examples on the forum to copy from), CEL may not even continue the case - that's when there's a really good chance of getting your £255 refunded by them - doubly sweet.

Quentin

Regarding option 3 in #5.

This isn't really a proper option unless you have no assets. (Which doesn't seem the case from your consideration to pay the ccj or set aside fee)

If you follow that route and simply ignore this, then bear in mind that the claimant has 6 years to enforce the judgement (by various means such as attachment of earnings/bailiffs etc), and all Associated costs and extra court fees and bailiff charges will get added on to what you owe.

So only worth considering if you are confident that they will never find you at your new address!

Quentin

Umkomaas wrote: »

.....
£325 kills it - provided it hasn't already migrated to your credit file, if it has do not pay it ...
...

If you decide to pay it off then as long as you do so within 30 days of the date of the ccj then your credit file won't be blemished.

You should get a receipt of the claimant then contact the court to ensure the ccj is removed from the register.

It will be and won't have any future issues

Rexelcentor

So I made the decision to pay the £325 and end the matter - logged on to the Money Claim Online service and entered the relevant details....I have no option to pay online it just tells me to pay according to the Judgement which obviously I haven't received because it will be getting sent to the wrong address!!!!!!!!!

Quentin

That's because you don't pay the court!


You must pay the claimant directly - use the address they gave you on the claim form if you cannot get hold of the judgement documentation. Be sure to send the correct amount the court ordered, together with a request for a receipt and a SAE.