Unknown CCJ with some complexities- please help

Umkomaas

Nice report, enjoyed reading it and well done in getting the CCJ set aside.

This is compounded by the fact that I have been trying to study for my surgical exams and it has taken much needed time away from the books. I haven't been able to sleep as I have been under so much pressure and it has not eased much knowing that they will come after us once again.

I’m sure your Hippocratic Oath won’t allow you to agree with me, but I do hope you’re operating on one of those who caused you these problems, after another one of your sleepless nights! Do you cover ‘Karma’ in your studies?

Herzlos

Well done! The claimants rep is always going to claim they have a strong chance of winning - it's all part of the imitation game to try and get you to give them money.

The reality is they lose most claims where the defense is well prepared. A "drop hands" offer is the fairest all round, and makes you look more reasonable when they (probably) reject it. When they do you can always see what they'll want to consider it claimed, and give them a counter offer of something like £10 for their hassle.

For you to get your £255 set-aside back at this stage you'd need to let it go back to court again, beat them and claim your costs. You stand a pretty good chance of winning, and even if losing you're (a) not paying much more than they are asking for now and (b) you can get some comfort from the fact they are still losing money from it*

*The only way they actually make money is from people who pay up without fighting it.

Coupon-mad

THEN the bombshell....
whilst the claimant rep was stating having evidence of paperwork i like the set aside etc the judge stated that the LPC/SCS team must not have all the evidence as there is a record of someone calling the court in January 2017 to tell them they had recieved court papers that were not theirs and they believed that they were for the former tenant!! They had noted they had no forwarding address.

They opposing council looked dumbfounded and my wife and I could hardly believe our ears.

Wow, what a turn up!

If this proceeds to a hearing for the actual case, you CAN act as lay rep. Don't accept a drop hands offer that means you are still out of pocket by £255 and your costs for attending! They owe you £255 at least, already.

DO NOT pay for the expenses of a lay rep, nor accept some random stranger offering to 'help':

We would consider using one of the advocate systems that people have had success with before- I don't know even where to start with this...

Nonononono. More no.

You'd have no idea who rocks up, who they actually are, what their real agenda is. NOPE.

At Manchester the Judges know the score re parking scams anyway, as it seems you noticed. You are likely to win and you need to claim your costs even if VCS now discontinue.

wdm1985

Hi Guys,

So an update. We eventually got our set aside confirmed and it was cleared off my wifes records by the courts. We could file a new defence or just keep our defence from the the set aside on record. In the end we did that as I just didn't have the time to do the paperwork or file for discovery.

We finally got round to it and got the PDF today.

So interestingly- they have provided a contract with the management company. Of most interest to me they seem to have missed that the contract is dated after 3/4 of the tickets. Surely this is a good thing for us? we have an option to file a reply/directions questionnaires but I would have thought that this is better for me to hold for court.

Secondly- the ticket for 'not displaying a valid ticket'- the ticket can be seen in the window. However, there is a handwritten note to my wife saying this is the wrong spot. Now my wife was given a blank permit without a space on it. They have only ticketed her because of this note. Surely that doesn't count as legally binding. I doubt there is a record of what car is parked where and secondly she had parked there many times without a ticket.

thoughts?

thanks

Coupon-mad

Of most interest to me they seem to have missed that the contract is dated after 3/4 of the tickets. Surely this is a good thing for us? we have an option to file a reply/directions questionnaires but I would have thought that this is better for me to hold for court.

You can't ambush the other side at the hearing, so definitely file a Witness Statement reply to this, and if you are sent a DQ you must complete it.

Secondly- the ticket for 'not displaying a valid ticket'- the ticket can be seen in the window. However, there is a handwritten note to my wife saying this is the wrong spot. Now my wife was given a blank permit without a space on it. They have only ticketed her because of this note. Surely that doesn't count as legally binding. I doubt there is a record of what car is parked where and secondly she had parked there many times without a ticket.

The above sounds good for you!

[Deleted User]

Statement: assuming the contract is provided only after you lodged the defence, you can now comment on it here.

Make sure the statement is simultaneously exchanged. You don't want them to prepare their statement only after they've read yours.

It would be handy to try and find out from management co. Or the minutes of those meetings whether there was a preceding parking contract. There is a risk that they will magic up an earlier one (if there ever was one) when they are aware of the error. From what I see on the forum it's more common for there only ever to be 1 (often quite old) contract though.

At the moment your statement can only say that the claimant can derive no authority to ticket from the documents produced to court since the parking events pre-date the contract and it is not their land to issue tickets from in the absence of contract or written authority.

As to the permit. Are you saying the written note was left with the ticket? If the lease is silent as to parking bays and the permit, then I'd be inclined to agree that you can probably park where you like.

wdm1985

Hi again,

So our defence for the whole matter is already on file with the courts. We agreed to use the one from the set aside with the judge if we didn't have time to file a new one. We didn't get any of their evidence until after the date for which we were due to submit our defence.
Can we continue to submit documents to the court after this?

Coupon.... its not so much as ambushing them.... they have submitted their evidence which includes a contract that is not relevant. I don't quite understand why I should have to inform them of this when they can see it for themselves. All I am doing then is surely allowing them to find more relevant evidence to go after me with?

I do not know who owns the actual land.... it might be the stakeholders as the flats are all privately owned.

nosferatu1001

Find out who owns it then! Land registry.

You have TWO components to sort. Defence AND your witness statement. Your witness statement can be the one used at your set aside, if you used one, or you write one. You ref all your evidence here. You also show here that the contract is not relevant. Court isn’t about yellin g”surprise”! You must follow procedure.

Coupon-mad

Can we continue to submit documents to the court after this?

Yes, why not, they did!

Coupon.... its not so much as ambushing them.... they have submitted their evidence which includes a contract that is not relevant. I don't quite understand why I should have to inform them of this when they can see it for themselves. All I am doing then is surely allowing them to find more relevant evidence to go after me with?

Ahh, OK, if you are not actually planning to brandish new documents at the hearing for the first time, then planning to question them about their evidence failures is fine (that sort of 'ambush' is allowed).

Write yourself a crib sheet out of what you want to say and point out that the 'witness' has almost certainly no such thing, has never even set foot in the car park and probably won't turn up to be questioned. Make sure the Judge hears how unhappy you are with their dodgy evidence and lack of witness.

wdm1985

HI Guys,
So we have my wifes case in May. When we submitted our defence for the set aside the judge asked if we wanted to keep that on record and we did. Its just over 2 weeks to the case and we have received the bundle from the claimant and it has frightened us. I was all set to put our revised witness statement together today when I got their bundle. They have said that as we had not submitted a second defence and they have used addressed all the points in our witness statement against us.

As I had labelled it as a 'skeleton statement' am I still ok to write new one and address other points? if we were forced to use the one from the set aside I am sure that we will lose this case. I was under the impression that we could resubmit paperwork etc up until 2 weeks before which would be Tuesday.

They have said in their witness statement:

'the defendant did not file a seperate fully pleaded defence to the claim and per the order dated 1/11/17 the document attached to her application dated 25/08/2017 stands as her defence. I will therefore respond to her assertions'

In their evidence they still haven't provided a contract with the landowner... just two separate contracts with the management companies at this time. Even then the contracts remain redacted.

There is so much stuff in their witness statment and so much I would need to look at and rebuke. But i don't even know now. We could lose up to 1500 in this case and with the new baby I feel a bit sick at what now seems a very daunting prospect.

any advice on what I can actually do now regarding amended witness statement is much appreciated.

thanks

WDM