CEL Defence

samr85

Hi,


I sent off a defence to a CEL County Court claim after I had read the advice on these forums, they have sent their particulars of the claim, along with a letter that was apparently issued on the 11/10/17 (obviously never received), along with a schedule of information
The original claim is dating back to 2015.
They have quoted Vine v Waltham Forest London Borough Council [2000] 4 All ER 169
The car was parked in a residential car park, the defence is against the keeper of the vehicle, not the driver (the keeper was working over 80 miles away at the time).
They also quote ParkingEye Limited v Beavis. This letter is also dated the 11th October with a postmark of 26th October. I sent my defence on Wednesday 25th.
Please can you offer any advice? Have I acted prematurely?!
Thank You

samr85

Obviously copies of the letters received & sent can be supplied, unfortunately, we don't have any of the original letters from 2015 due to time passed.
ANY HELP DESPERATELY APPRECIATED!!!

Loadsofchildren123

Yes you sent your defence prematurely. This is a common mistake, which is quite new and seems to be exclusive to CEL at present.


But does it matter? Do the new PoCs add anything new that you would have added to your defence had you realised you could wait? If not then it doesn't matter.


If there is something you wished you'd added, I'd first of all phone up the court and see if you can and allow you to file a new one:
1. you didn't realise that where the claim form says "full particulars to follow within 14 days" this meant you should wait to acknowledge and defend. The court sent you the AoS and defence forms with the claim, which was a bit misleading.
2. so you thought you had to defend without waiting for the PoC.
3. The PoC were served late (not within the 14 days of the Claim Form allowed under Rule 7.4). Had they been on time, you would have received them before you filed your defence. They should have been served by [x date - calculate this by adding 5 days to the date on the claim form and then another 14 days] but they weren't actually served until 27th October.
4. the new PoC adds new things and you should be allowed to defend them.
Please can they discard your defence and allow you to submit a replacement, within the 14 days allowed. Tell them the PoC were backdated and weren't in fact sent until 26th, and were therefore served on 27th, which means your defence should have been due on 10th November.


If the nice person on the phone doesn't agree to allow you to do this, then write straight away to the court in those terms and ask the court to make an order allowing you to submit an Amended Defence. Send a copy to CEL. Ask the court to either make an order exercising its inherent powers under Rule 1.4(2)(c) and Practice Direction 26 paragraph 5.1, or to treat your letter as an application pursuant to Rule 23.3(2)(b).


The court may tell you that you must apply formally which involves a £100 fee and you have to do it on Form N244. If you don't want to pay the £100 then you could just try and deal with this in your WS when the time comes and explain all about the Claimant's breaches and how confusing it was that the court served the AoS and defence forms with the Claim Form, whereas they should have been served with the further PoC according to Rule 7.8(1).