Mystery CCJ - Civil Enforcement Ltd

Loadsofchildren123

I haven't read your defence, I've come on here to ask you to think about how you will evidence that you had parking rights.
You have the letter from your employer, but how were the parking rights dealt with between you and employer? Eg did they give you a permit, was there a whitelist etc. The defence arguments are quite different depending on which it is. Have a look at my Admiral thread, where the employee paid for the parking and was given t&cs and there was a parking contract between her and Admiral (the employer), so the contractual argument was that Excel/VCS had no right to impose different terms or to impose a contractual charge for breaching those different terms.


So were you formally granted parking rights, did you pay for them, was there anything in writing between you and employer, were you ever asked for your VRN, or were you just told "see those spaces over there, they are ours and you can park there"?

Loadsofchildren123

jamiegray47 wrote: »

Please see a very draft defence at this stage.

I *** the defendant in this matter and registered keeper of vehicle *** during the dates in question. I currently reside at ***


The Claim Form issued on the *** by Civil Enforcement Limited was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by "The Legal Team".


1. The Defendant admits to being the driver of the vehicle and having parked in xxxxx on the relevant date. he denies that he is I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim for each and every one of the following reasons:

2. I also ask that cost thus far are reimbursed to the amount of £567 for the following reasons: [I've dealt with this at the costs section below, don't specify an amount at this stage, because you will want to add in the costs of your time]

1.1 In the Particulars of Claim Summary of Proof CEL the Claimant has stated that is manages the car park *** and that the Defendant is liable for the charge for non compliant parking. At the relevant time, the Defendant's employer Link 2 Recruit rented (leased?) the land from the landowner, BarclayGrant Property Services (or were they the landowner's agent?), and the terms of its occupation included the right to use a number of allocated spaces in the car park for use by its employees. At the relevant time the Defendant was an employee of Link 2 Recruit, and as such had its authority to use any one of the allocated spaces [or whatever you were told you could do]. The Defendant can provide confirmation of this in writing from Link 2 Recruit Please see the Attached Statement From my previous employer Link 2 Recruit who at the time in question rented the land from BarclayGrant Property Services. don't produce the statement/letter, just set out what it says. Send it to CEL with a covering letter though and invite them to withdraw the claim]
1.2 The Defendant admits that he parked in the xx car park on the relevant date, but avers that he was entitled to do so. As noted in the Statement from Link 2 Recruit I was entitled to park in the car park at *** between the dates *** and *** inclusive of the date in question
1.3 I do not deny that I did park at *** on the date in question. , as I have stated above if any correspondence had been sent Had the Defendant been aware of the alleged charge, or of these proceedings, he would have had ample evidence to correct the Claimant's mistake issue and prove give proof of his/her right to park my parking being compliant, however no good effort was made by the Claimant to make contact with myselfhim.
add new para:
The Defendant denies that there can have been any contract formed between him and the Claimant in respect of parking at xxxx because the Defendant had already been granted the right to park there by his/her employer (and the Defendant complied with the terms of such parking)
When the Defendant became aware that the Claimant was attempting to levy a charge against him/her he raised it with his employer, who told him not to pay it and that they would resolve the issue with the Claimant.
1.4 The summary of proof states that the DVSA submitted my good address when I was living at *** and if any correspondence had have arrived including and not restricted to Notice of PCN, PCN or *** I would have actioned a defence sooner. I think delete this because this issue has already been dealt with in the set aside



The Defendant seeks an order that the Claimant pays his costs as follows:
2.1 £255 (Set aside Fee) in respect of his successful application to set aside default judgment, heard on x date. I would like to recover costs to the amount of £255 for the set aside cost If appropriate efforts had been made to
Due to the fact that if good effort was made to contact him/her myself and submit correspondence no judgement would have been made and I would not have had to Cover the cost of a Set a side hearing.
2.2 £210 (Loss of earnings) I'm not going to change this every time - you say "the Defendant seeks" not "I would like...."I would like to recover costs to the value of £105 per day for 18th June 2018 when attending the Set aside hearing and the hearing of this Claim Date of any upcoming Court dates Note: maximum the rules allow you to claim is £95 per day and you have to produce evidence eg pay slip (on the day of the hearing not with the defence).
2.3 £50 (legal Costs) I would like to recover the costs of £50 for legal costs and advice obtained during the entire judgement process. Due to the fact that if good effort was made to contact myself and submit correspondence no judgement would have been made and I would not have had to Cover the cost of legal costs.can you produce evidence you incurred this cost? I thought the £50 was recoverable only by a Claimant not a Defendant, check the rule.
2.4 £10 (first Class Recorded Delivery x2) I would like to recover incurred in relation to the costs of 2 recorded first class deliveries for delivering my defence statement to Dudley County Court and CEL Due to the fact that if good effort was made to contact myself and submit correspondence no judgement would have been made and I would not have had to Cover the cost of a First class recorded deliveries.
2.5 £42 (interest) I would like to recover the cost of £42 as interest in accordants with S68 of the CCJ act 1984 at 8% APR from the dates Sept 2017 to Present. Due to the fact little or no effort was made to resolve the issue in good time. Please not on the time line the date I had correspondence with CEL and updated my personal address and details and no contact has been made since this date. you won't get this, delete it
2.6 Costs in respect of the time the Defendant has had to spend defending the claim, because it has been pursued in an unreasonable manner by the Claimant as set out in CPR Rule 27.14(2)(g).

some comments to start you off. You need to expressly say that you deny there can have been any contract between you and CEL because you had already been granted the rights to park by the employer.

jamiegray47

its the latter they were communal spaces for us but as the carpark was on the high street ANPR was a deterrent to shoppers. there was 5 spaces and about 15 employees so it was lucky to get a spot but if there was one we were fine to park there as noted in the employers statement.

my plan to proove the parking rights was to use the statement and to get a statement backed up by the actual landowner but the business has since been dissolved. the land was owned by Barclaygrant property services and CEL have been used as a debt collection agency.

do you think i will need more proof or will the statement suffice?

jamiegray47

Thanks for the notes so far thats fantastic!

in all honesty the £50 costs were as they had included that as a cost i thought id be cheeky and ask the same

Loadsofchildren123

as noted in the employers statement.

Was that part of your contract? That's the most crucial document then. What exactly does it say?


Were there signs by the 5 spaces saying "for xxxx [name of your employer]" - that's also important


Have you read up on other CEL threads? CEL don't do court. They issue a claim, they make you defend it, they make you file a WS, then when the hearing fee is due to be paid they discontinue. There is always the possibility they will change their policy, but so far every single properly defended CEL claim gets dropped at that stage. Other PPCs blindly proceed, but this is where CEL is different (they do this because even if they win it costs them more to go to court than the amount they win - other PPCs don't care and just do court every single time treating the few that go all the way as loss leaders)


So you can be confident this will go nowhere, but you still have to do all the work to defend it.


The defence is just legal points, the detail (ie the facts) gets put in your WS.


CEL also do a try-on at the last minute, writing to you offering you a settlement. Don't take it.

Coupon-mad

I do not deny that I did park at *** on the date in question,

Why? Have you already admitted that in an early appeal or at the set aside hearing?

Loadsofchildren123

But he should identify himself as driver imo, because he had pre-existing rights to park and that is his entire defence. no point denying driving or making them prove it.

Coupon-mad

I'm in two minds, only because it's CEL who will discontinue. But maybe they will anyway.

jamiegray47

As it was my main defence when the judge asked do I deny being there I said no.

Loadsofchildren123

this allows you to keep it simple. Yes it was me, but I had the right to park which had nothing to do with the Claimant, who cannot interfere with my contractual pre-existing rights to park.


Can you elaborate on saying the parking was in your employee statement? What do you mean? Is this part of your employment contract? What exactly did it say? Were the spaces marked in any way to distinguish them from the rest of the car park? Was there a whitelist or was CEL simply not authorised to ticket cars parked in those spaces?


Can you prove that your employer had those parking rights to give to you? eg their lease/tenancy agreement with the landlord? I know you have something from your employer - is that just a letter saying "we had parking rights to x dedicated marked spaces in the car park under our tenancy/lease dated xxx and we confirm that you were permitted to park in those spaces as an employee of the company" or does it go further by providing a copy of the relevant part of the tenancy/lease?


The trouble is if CEL provide a contract from landowner which does not exclude those spaces, you need to prove that your employer's rights pre-dated that contract and DID include the spaces.


I'm raising all of this because you need it all to argue the defence properly. To a large extent, it's academic really because CEL will withdraw. However, I'm a belt and braces type of gal and would prefer it all to be properly argued and evidenced.


Two reasons for this:
1. CEL might one day change its policy and do what the other PPCs do which is go to court for every single one, even if they're going to lose and even though when they win they recover less than it's cost them;
and
2. Arguing your defence properly, showing that they have absolutely no case, puts you in a stronger position to try to recover all your costs (including the time you are putting in at £19 per hour) under Rule 27.14(2)(g)