CEL Small court claim

trymedo

Hi all,

I'm new here, so please excuse me if I've missed anything in the sticky threads. I've received a small claims form from County Court Business Centre, by Civil Enforcement Ltd. The amount they are claiming is £355.28 (that's including the court fees [£25] and legal representative's costs [£50]).

I did originally appeal the ticket which was for overstaying in a parking space by about 13 minutes. I was issued a parking "invoice" for about £100, which I thought was pretty steep considering the space is free for 3 hours...

Anyway, I've just sent my Acknowledgement of service, but have not filed my dispute or anything. I'm looking for further advice before I do so.

The original appeal that I sent was never responded to - instead all I got was more letters (from different companies each time) with the amount ever increasing. It's now at £280.28.

I want to fight the claim, however I'm also looking to buy a house soon and don't want a CCJ or anything that might affect my credit rating - can anyone advise on whether that's even a thing? I heard it was and it's making me cautious about fighting this battle...

Any advice on next steps would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

claxtome

I want to fight the claim, however I'm also looking to buy a house soon and don't want a CCJ or anything that might affect my credit rating - can anyone advise on whether that's even a thing?

You would only receive a CCJ = County Court Judgement if it went to court AND you lost AND you didn't pay the fees the court awarded to the other side within time.
So as long as you pay any court judgement it won't ever affect your credit rating.

I am glad you want to fight. 2 good reasons->

1) We have a very good track record on this forum of winning cases and as long as you do as we advise you have a very good chance to win at court if it goes that far.

2) If you continue fighting and the worse happens you lose it is almost guaranteed you would pay less than the £355+ you quote as the current total.

Assuming you want to continue fighting I suggest you look again at the 'NEWBIES' thread and start searching for 'Civil Enforcement' threads to help you form a draft defence.

Post your draft defence on here when you are ready.

Redx

please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread, post #2

do the AOS online (nothing else at this stage)

then draft your CEL defence based on other recent defences published on here in the last few weeks or so (there are plenty to read and to plagiarise)

then post it on here for critique

trymedo

Ok, I'm definitely going to fight it in that case. I've nabbed a copy of the defence template and will take a look through it to see if what I need to change... It all sounds very 'legal' to me and I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what I'm doing. If there's anything in there that doesn't sound like it's relevant to my case I'll remove it. For anything else, would it be ok to explain my situation here and ask for advice on what else to add and/or how best to phrase that?

Thanks

trymedo

Oh, firstly - I thought I'd post what I originally sent as an appeal. This may or may not have been the best way to approach it. Whatever the case, they never responded - and after waiting about 6 months they simply sent me another invoice and increased it to £180/£200 or something. I wasn't impressed.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to appeal against your parking invoice as I do not feel the amount you are requesting is fair or justified. The car park in question has a sign stating that it is a "FREE CAR PARK”. The driver was not aware of the time limit and accidentally overstayed - they did however spend that time shopping at the stores affiliated with the car par and so feel that this fine is completely unwarranted and the amount requested is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Had the driver left within the time limit it would have remained empty until another vehicle parked in that space at no charge - so please explain to me how can you possibly justify a loss of earnings?

I have also contacted Halfords and Homebase to complain about this time limit and as I have said to them, threatening to charge customers (and send bailiffs/debt collectors to their homes) for spending more time in their stores is absolutely ludicrous. I can only assume this is your "scare tactic” which in my opinion is just a form of harassment that I will not stand for.

As far as I am concerned, this is the end of the matter and would be grateful to see your cooperation in cancelling this charge.

Kind Regards,

It didn't work... but I found it strangely fun to write

Half_way

You should also be looking at getting in touch with the landowner, without whose authorisation CEL can not proceed in court.
do you know who this is/where the car park was?

trymedo

I know where the car park is, it was a 3 hour stay car park for Halfords in Chippenham. I don't know how I go about finding out who the land owner is though ��

Redx

google , or ask the shops , or pay the Land Registry a small fee for the info (oh yeah , I hadnt thought of that , lol)

trymedo

Update

Today I received the "Particulars of claim" from CEL. The original claim was filed on the 5th October, meaning the 14 day period they needed to send this started on the 8th October 2017. Today is 24th October 2017, so by my calculation, they've missed the 14 day period that they were supposed to send this to me. However, the letter they've sent is dated 11th October 2017 - can I still use this against them in my defence? Because, as I see it, just because the letter is dated 11th, it shouldn't have taken them this long to post it to me.

Any advice? Also, I've started my defence - it's in a google docs file and currently is just the template I found on this site with my own details (name, date etc) added. What more do I need to do to it in order to send it off?

Thanks

Redx

have you completed the AOS ?

what date is your "deadline" to file the defence ?

see post #25 here for what is done with the final version

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5727728

the more threads you read , the more you will learn

trymedo

Yes, I completed the AOS on 17th October.

On Moneyclaim.gov.uk, the only details I see are:

A claim was issued against you on 03/10/2017
Your acknowledgment of service was submitted on 17/10/2017 at 12:51:58
Your acknowledgment of service was received on 17/10/2017 at 14:01:51

Does that mean my "deadline" would be the 5th November?