Small claim against me even though paid fine

Loadsofchildren123

Hayles31 wrote: »

The Claimant has failed to file a defence to the counterclaim and I therefore request the Court enters judgment in default. Indeed, the Claimant has no defence to the counterclaim: it now admits that I had paid the charge on [date] and it therefore wrongfully obtained, retained and processed my data, even after I drew the payment to its attention and provided evidence to it. And the plethora of aggressive chasing letters were most certainly acts of harassment. This combined with the Claimant blindly ignoring my correspondence has caused me a great deal of distress.

Think you need to add this in given their letter to you.

Hayles31

Thanks so much, I will get this over to the Court ASAP and let you know how I get on. Like I said, the judgment form is built for claimant's rather than defendants so shall I just hand amend it to name defendant entering judgment rather than claimant? just want to check you saw all my posts as gladstones have responded but still not satisfactory reasons given?

Hayles31

sorry - think we must have been writing our posts at same time - will add that. Thanks again

Hayles31

please find final draft - any comments would be appreciated




I am the Defendant in this matter.





Please find enclosed:

• Request for judgment in default and draft Order
• Return fee of £10 in respect of my counterclaim which was refunded to me by the Court in error (the counterclaim is for £500 and not £300)

My Defence and Counterclaim would have been deemed served on 24 October 2017, the Court sending the Claimant a response pack on 25 October he Court. The Claimant should have filed a defence thereto by 10 November. The Claimant has failed to file a defence to the counterclaim and is now out of time to do so and I therefore request the Court enters judgment in default. Indeed, the Claimant has no defence to the counterclaim: it now admits that I had paid the charge. I submit that it therefore follows that it wrongfully obtained, retained and processed my data, even after I drew the payment to its attention and provided evidence to it. And the plethora of chasing letters and bringing Court proceedings were most certainly acts of harassment. This combined with the Claimant blindly ignoring my correspondence has caused me a great deal of distress.



I have also received a notice of discontinuance from the Claimant’s solicitors for the initial claim. The Claimant’s claim was completely unreasonable given that payment had previously been made for the parking charge notice and so claim should never have been made and at various points I brought the fact of payment to the Claimant and their solicitors attention but all correspondence has been ignored.





However, on 8 November 2017, I received a letter from the Claimant's solicitors that effectively admits that such payment was received and there was therefore no claim. I therefore request the Court orders that the Claimant pays my costs so far incurred these amount to 7.5 hours of time at the hourly rate of a litigant in person at £19 allowed by Rule 27.14(2), so a total of £142.50 (4 hours legal research, 1 hour letter writing, 2 hours drafting of court documents, 0.5 hours considering claimant’s/court’s correspondence)



The reason I am asking the court to make this order is:



1. I paid the debt which the Claimant asserts is still owed on 14 March 2017.

2. This is evidenced in a bank statement which shows payment was made. I enclose a copy. This evidence was provided to the Claimant as early as 30 May 2017.



3. I have told the Claimant and its solicitors repeatedly that I paid the debt, and have produced the evidence at paragraph 2 above. I enclose copies of the emails/letters.



4. I gave the Claimant many opportunities to not bring the claim and even discontinue the claim without consequence. I enclose a copies of my "drop hands offers" made on 30 May, 18 September, 27 September and 15 October 2017.



5. The Claimant has completely ignored these emails/letters (save for their letter of 7 November) (which it should have responded to in order to satisfy its obligations set out in paragraphs 3, 6 and 12 of the Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct).



6. I have had to go to the expense and trouble of researching, defending and counterclaiming which the claimant could have avoided. Indeed, the Claimant has now admitted it knows that I paid, with no satisfactory explanation for why this could not be confirmed by them much earlier.

7. Put simply, there was no cause of action. No debt existed. Therefore the Claimant’s conduct is completely unreasonable and costs should follow.

Loadsofchildren123

Hayles31 wrote: »

Thanks so much, I will get this over to the Court ASAP and let you know how I get on. Like I said, the judgment form is built for claimant's rather than defendants so shall I just hand amend it to name defendant entering judgment rather than claimant? just want to check you saw all my posts as gladstones have responded but still not satisfactory reasons given?

yes amend the form to make it clear it's the counterclaim


You are still the Defendant, although you are the claimant in the counterclaim, and they are still the Claimant, although they are the defendant to the counterclaim!

Loadsofchildren123

Hayles31 wrote: »

please find final draft - any comments would be appreciated




I am the Defendant in this matter.





Please find enclosed:

• Request for judgment in default and draft Order
• Return fee of £10 in respect of my counterclaim which was refunded to me by the Court in error (the counterclaim is for £500 and not £300)

My Defence and Counterclaim would have been deemed served on 24 October 2017, the Court sending the Claimant a response pack on 25 October he Court don't understand these dates, there's a typo somewhere.....do you mean deemed served 27th Oct? If they send it on the 25th it can't be served on the 24th! Service is deemed 2 days after posting (if that's not a business day you count on to the next business day - eg something posted on a Friday is deemed served on the Monday). The Claimant should have filed a defence thereto by 10 November. The Claimant has failed to file a defence to the counterclaim and is now out of time to do so and I therefore request the Court enters judgment in default. Indeed, the Claimant has no defence to the counterclaim: it now admits that I had paid the charge and . I submit that it therefore follows that it wrongfully obtained, retained and processed my data, even after I drew the payment to its attention and provided evidence to it. And the plethora of chasing letters and bringing Court proceedings were most certainly acts of harassment. This combined with the Claimant blindly ignoring my correspondence has caused me a great deal of distress.



I have also received a notice of discontinuance from the Claimant’s solicitors for the initial claim. The Claimant’s claim was completely unreasonable given that payment had previously been made for the parking charge notice and so it claim should never have been made. At various points I brought the fact of payment to the attention of the Claimant and their solicitors attention but all correspondence has been ignored.





However, on 8 November 2017, after my Defence and counterclaim had been served, I received a letter from the Claimant's solicitors that effectively admits that such payment was received and there was therefore no claim. I enclose a copy. It is my case that the Claimant behaved unreasonably in bringing and pursuing the claim. I therefore request that, as provided for in Rule 27.14(2)(g) the Court orders that the Claimant pays my costs so far incurred these amount to 7.5 hours of time at the hourly rate of a litigant in person at £19 allowed by Rule 46.5/paragraph 3.4 of Practice Direction 46, so a total of £142.50 (4 hours legal research, 1 hour letter writing/liaising with the court, 2 hours drafting of court documents, 0.5 hours considering claimant’s/court’s correspondence and documents)



The reason I am asking the court to make this order is:



1. I paid the debt which the Claimant asserts is still owed on 14 March 2017.

2. This is evidenced in a bank statement which shows payment was made. I enclose a copy. This evidence was provided to the Claimant as early as 30 May 2017.



3. I have told the Claimant and its solicitors repeatedly that I paid the debt, and have produced the evidence at paragraph 2 above. I enclose copies of the emails/letters.



4. I gave the Claimant many opportunities to not bring the claim and even discontinue the claim without consequence. I enclose a copies of my "drop hands offers" made on 30 May, 18 September, 27 September and 15 October 2017.



5. The Claimant has completely ignored these emails/letters (save for their letter of 7 November) (which it should have responded to in order to satisfy its obligations set out in paragraphs 3, 6 and 12 of the Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct).



6. I have had to go to the expense and trouble of researching, defending and counterclaiming which the claimant could have been avoided if the Claimant had dealt properly with the evidence that I had paid the charge. Indeed, the Claimant has now admitted it knows that I paid, with no satisfactory explanation for why this could not be confirmed by them much earlier.

7. Put simply, there was no cause of action. No debt existed. Therefore the Claimant’s conduct is completely unreasonable in having brought this claim and ignored the provisions of the Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct, and costs should follow.

some suggestions
You should add at the end that you confirm you have sent a copy of this letter to the Claimants. Their Defence is due today, so you need to send this next week.

Loadsofchildren123

Hayles31 wrote: »

I also received a letter from gladstones enclosing the discontuance staying that they have now found my payment and there was some sort of error when received which the claimant had no way of confirming. They also refer to my counterclaim staying not valid as their client is entitled to obtain details from DVLA (I know this is not correct as they had no reasonable cause even if error and furthermore even if they get away with that they still continued to pass my details on to their solicitors and the court despite various emails I sent stating I had paid so that amounts to a breach too. They have also failed to note that I am also claiming harassment) They also say I haven't provided details of my loss (They will know that this will from part of my WS) and have asked that I discontune with no order as to costs and welcome confirmation this has been done

Since the Defence to counterclaim is only due today, you'd better respond to this letter.


Dear Sirs


Thank you for your letter of x date.


I note that it is now conceded that I paid the original charge, in full, on x March 2017. Although you now state that this is accepted, there is no explanation in your letter as to why it has taken so long for the payment to be traced, or why proceedings were prematurely issued without your client making proper enquiries.


It is clearly not my fault if your client does not have proper procedures in place to match payments with PCNs.


What is clear is that the claim should never have been brought. I will be writing to the court seeking a costs order. [send them the letter to the court once it's been sent]


With regard to the counterclaim, your assertion that this is baseless is rejected. Your client has accepted that I paid the charge and that the mistake in believing I had not was your client's mistake and not because of any act or omission on my part. Therefore, it is quite clear that my data was wrongfully obtained, retained and processed. Even if it were decided that it was not wrongfully obtained, it was quite clearly wrongfully retained and processed from the date I sent you the evidence that I had paid.


Having been made aware of the error, your client continued to process and retain my data, including passing it to third party debt collectors, an aggravated breach of my rights under the Data Protection Act. The Act exists to protect a person's data, and your client has committed a flagrant breach of it.


Furthermore, your client, both through its own actions and those of its agents acting on its instructions, proceeded to harass me by sending me repeated letters chasing increased amounts of money in increasingly aggressive terms, when all along your client had evidence that I had paid the original charge.


All of this caused me an immense amount of worry, distress and alarm.



I will not be dropping the counterclaim and I expect your client to make me an offer of settlement.


Yours faithfully etc.


I think you should send this today, and include a copy of it in your letter to the court that you're sending next week.

Hayles31

thanks, I sent the claimant the defence/counterclaim without a response pack which would have been deemed served on 24 October, the court sent response pack to them on 25 October so that's why I have said that. Not sure how to word as I take it I should allow them the time from when they would have received the response pack rather than my defence?

Hayles31

I'll send my letter to the court tomorrow so it arrives with the court on Monday

Loadsofchildren123

Hayles31 wrote: »

I was going to sned this draft order with the judgment in default form:

Draft Order

• That the Claimant having failed to submit a Defence to the Defendant's Counterclaim, do pay to the Defendant within 7 days of this Order the sum of £500 in respect of damages for breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 and misuse of personal data and for breach of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 as claimed.
• The Claimant do pay the Defendant's Court costs of £35

yes that looks fine - the costs para needs changing though:
The C do pay the D's court costs of the counterclaim in the sum of £35, and the D's costs in respect of the withdrawn Claim in the sum of £x [whatever your figure was], such payment to be made within 14 days of the date of this Order