CCJ Set aside - now defence needed CEL Ltd

Le1anne

Hi All,


I am new to this site and would really appreciate some advice!


1. CCJ issued 2017 without my knowledge or documents sent. I did move address however I did notify DVLA/Credit reference agencies and had a re-direction on post and received nothing.
2. Followed procedure for a set aside and this was granted in court (CEL Ltd) didn't turn up!
3. Order was made for Claimant shall file PoC and I shall file my defence. I have been very unwell and only could look at it tonight in a panic.
4. The court is to send out Direction Questionnaires upon receipt of the defence (I don't know what this is...?)


I have looked through the NEWBIES posts and I have pulled together a defence (hopefully not too bad) and I was wondering if one of you could have a look and see if its ok?


Thank you in advance



The defendant admits that she is the registered keeper of the vehicle xxxxx but does not know who was driving on the (date) and denies she is liable for the entirety of the claim for the following reasons:


1.1 This claim appears to relate to an allegedly unpaid parking charge from Civil Enforcement Limited dating back to xx/08/2016, a year and a half ago. I have no recollection of parking at this car park, however other people had use if this car as well including a blue badge holder. On the balance of probabilities and to the best of my recollection, I am unlikely to have been the driver on that occasion and I put the Claimant to strict proof, because without that they have no case against me, since this Claimant chooses not to use the statue which would have given them the right to claim !!!8216;keeper liability!!!8217;

• 1. This claimant failed to comply with its preaction obligations set out in the Practice Direction- Pre-Action conduct, because it has failed to provide any meaningful explanation as to what the alleged debt refers to or how it arose or any evidence to back up the claim (a breach of paragraph 3, 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction. This puts the Defendant at a serious disadvantage because she is unable to file a full and proper defence - for example a claim in respect of parking can be trespass, breach of contract or contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and would require a difference defence. In addition, if the claim is bought under contract, the Defendant is entitled to know and understand the terms of the contract relied upon and how the alleged driver entermeted into it (Practice Direction 16, paragraph 7 also provides that these matters must be included in the Of Claim) The Claimant has never explained this nor provided a copy of the alleged contract leaving the Defendant unaware of its terms or how the driver is alleged to have entered it.
• The Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocl
• There was no documentation received at all by the Defendant before the CCJ was issued
• This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing large numbers of identical !!!8216;draft particulars!!!8217;.
• The initial County Court Business Centre claim form only contains the claimants name, address and amounts of money identified as debt and damages, with notice that will be provided within 14 days

The schedule of information also is sparse of detailed information:

• The defendant, who is the registered keep and not identified as the driver at the time.
• The VRN
• The date and time of alleged incident
• Car park name
• Outstanding amount and breakdown

It does not detail

• Proof or confirmation of the driver at the time of the alleged incident
• Proof of the vehicle being there at the time
• The vehicle type and colour
• Why the charge arose

1.2 This case can be distinguished from Parking Eye v Beavis (2015) UKSC 67 (the Beavis Case) which was dependent upon an un-denied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer which turned on unique facts regarding the location and interests of landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licences park free. None of this applies in this material case.





1.3 The claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is being remunerated and the particulars of the claim are templates, so it is not credible that !!!8216;legal (or even admin) costs!!!8217; were incurred





The defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the court to note the claimant has failed to disclose any cause of action in the claim form issued


The vague Of Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit.

KeithP

Your best bet is to read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky/pinned thread where you will be guided through the whole process.

Have you received the claimant's Particulars of Claim?
You cannot write a Defence without a PoC.


You also need to check your spelling and your copying skills.
'statute' spelt 'statue'.
The phrase 'Particulars of Claim' appears (at least) twice as 'of Claim'.

Le1anne

Hi,


Thank you for your reply. I only received the PoC after the CCJ was set aside and CEL were ordered to. It is dated April 2017 when the original court application was submitted by them. I had not received any documents from them at all until now. I can upload the PoC if you would like to see? However it seems this is a generic response with no clarity how i got this debt!


I will correct all editing to the document sorry done this late last night. Apart from the spellings is the content ok? I don't want to write something that is incorrect. I used the Newbies pages to write this from various posts.


I will try and find NEWBIES #2 to guide me through this next part but at the moment i can only locate the first NEWBIES thread?


I need to send my defence today as i need to have it there by the 14th.


Thank you

Quentin

There is only one newbies faq thread!


Each post in threads is numbered (#1, #2 etc)


This post is #4 in your thread

nosferatu1001

Post 2 of the newbies thread is what you were told to find

NOT the 2nd newbies thread.
Please read carefully whats been written by others, especially courts.

Le1anne

Sorry everyone. There is a lot of information to read which is what I have tried to do so I don!!!8217;t have to ask you guys loads of questions.

I have not used this forum before. I have found the process from this stage thank you.

In regard to my defence I have changed it slightly looking at some other defence statements on here. If I post it up If one of you could have a read I would be very grateful.

Loadsofchildren123

The Claim Form: does this say that detailed PoC are to follow in 14 days?


If yes, you do not need to file your defence until AFTER this is received.


They have to file the detailed PoC within 14 days of the Claim Form being served on you. Have they? Are they late? If they are late, you should write to the court to point out that the Further PoC have not been filed or served, CEL is out of time to do so, in the meantime you are unable to defend the claim, and are not obliged to serve any defence. The PoC are x days late so please can they strike out the claim.


Calculation for lateness of PoC:
Claim form deemed served 5 days after the date of issue. What is this? Add 14 days to that, and that's when the Further PoC should have been served.
It may be that the old claim form has been served, which contains the old date of issue. So it's difficult for you to calculate the date the PoC are due - so explain this and count the 14 days from the date you received the Claim Form (if this was a Sat/Sun count from the Monday).


The relevant rules for saying you don't file your defence until you've received the further PoC are these, and you should quote these in your letter (I've put the relevant parts in red, and my questions/comments in green):



rule 7.4
(1) Particulars of claim must !!!8211;
(a) be contained in or served with the claim form; or
(b) subject to paragraph (2) be served on the defendant by the claimant within 14 days after service of the claim form.
[the latter applies to you]


Practice Direction 7E
paragraph 6.1 Where the particulars of claim are served by the claimant separately from the claim form pursuant to paragraph 5.2(2), the claimant must !!!8211;
(1) serve the particulars of claim in accordance with rule 7.4(1)(b); and
(2) file a certificate of service in form N215 at the County Court Business Centre within 14 days of service of the particulars of claim on the defendant. [you should ask if a form N215 has been filed and ask for a copy of it]


Rule 9.1(2)
(2) Where the defendant receives a claim form which states that particulars of claim are to follow, he need not respond to the claim until the particulars of claim have been served on him.


Rule 9.2
When particulars of claim are served on a defendant, the defendant may !!!8211;
(a) file or serve an admission in accordance with Part 14;
(b) file a defence in accordance with Part 15,
(or do both, if he admits only part of the claim); or
(c) file an acknowledgment of service in accordance with Part 10.
[it may be that you filed the acknowledgement by mistake, not realising you didn't have to until after the detailed PoC were received, if so explain that you filed the AoS and didn't realise you were not obliged to do so under rule 9.2(c)]


Rule 15.4
(1) The general rule is that the period for filing a defence is !!!8211;
(a) 14 days after service of the particulars of claim; or
(b) if the defendant files an acknowledgment of service under Part 10, 28 days after service of the particulars of claim.
(Rule 7.4 provides for the particulars of claim to be contained in or served with the claim form or served within 14 days of service of the claim form)

Loadsofchildren123

Have you found the answer to your question what is a directions questionnaire?
The DQ is something that gets sent out to both parties to fill in once the Defence has been filed, so it's not something you need to worry about right now. But it's all in that newbies thread so hopefully you've read and absorbed that now.

Loadsofchildren123

The good news is that CEL invariably withdraw from well defended claims, so put the groundwork in now and they won't proceed.
Other PPCs proceed regardless, but CEL gives up the fight when they can see there's a fight, they only proceed against people who either don't defend, or defend very badly.

Le1anne

Thank you so much for all your information.

So some background this was what was on the original claim form

1. On the claim itself to the County Court Business Center particulars of the claim are just referring to costs and it states 'I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days'

2. I never received any of this as i wasn't even aware that i had a CCJ until i checked my credit file. The PCN they are referring to was from 2016, they made the claim in the April 2017 and then the CCJ was applied in the May 2017. I didn't find out about it until the August and i went to court in Jan to get it over turned. I had moved, changed my DVLA doc's but still they served to the old address.

3. The CCJ has been overturned however my court order states i now need to provide a defence

4. They have sent through the Particulars of Claim within the period granted by the judge their particulars of claim however this is dated April 2017. It seems to be the generic one they send to send to everyone. No details of what i have breached etc

5. The date on the claim form and the date on the PoC are the same? I feel like they have backdated it so i cannot say if they served them to me originally on time?

I am sorry this may be a silly question but as i have described above i am not sure if the points you mention now still apply?

I have found out about the DQ thank you - i have been trying to navigate through the various threads, its knowing if the points relate to your case or not.

Please see my updated defence statement below does it look ok? Should i include any points from what you mentioned?



CIVIL ENFORCEMENT LIMITED
Claimant

-and-


xx
Defendant



DEFENCE STATEMENT




:

1. I xxx the defendant admit that I am the registered keep of the vehicle xxxx but I do not know who was driving on the xxx 2016 and I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim for each of the following reasons:

2. The Claim form issued on the xxxx Civil Enforcement limited was not correctly filed under the Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed !!!8216;Civil Enforcement Limited!!!8217;


3. This Claimant has not complied with the pre court protocol set out in the Practice Direction Pre-Action conduct because it has failed to provide any meaningful explanation as to what the alleged debt refers to. As an example of as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or contractual changes. All of which are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter. The Defendant is entitled to know and understand the terms of the contract relied upon and how the alleged driver entered it. (Practice Direction 16, paragraph 7 also provides that these matters must be included in the Particulars of Claim).

a. There was no documentation received at all before the CCJ was issued
b. This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing large number of identical !!!8216;draft particulars!!!8217;. The documents contain very little information.
c. The initial County Court Business Centre claim form only contains the Defendants name, address, and amounts of money identified as debt and damages, with notice these would be provided within 14 days
d. The schedule of information is sparse of detailed information, it does not detail
!!!8226; Proof or confirmation who the driver was or the alleged incident
!!!8226; Proof of the vehicle being there on this date and time
!!!8226; The vehicle type and colour
!!!8226; Why the charge arose

4. This case can be distinguished from Parking Eye v Beavis (2015) UKSC 67 (the Beavis Case) which was dependent upon an un-denied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer which turned on unique facts regarding the location and interests of landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licences park free. None of this applies in this material case.

5. The claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is being remunerated and the particulars of the claim are templates, so it is not credible that !!!8216;legal (or even admin) costs!!!8217; were incurred

6. The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the claimant in any matters and asks the court to note the Claimant has failed to disclose any cause of action in the claim form issued.

7. The vague Particulars of the Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success.

8. I believe that the facts in this witness statement are true.

Again thank you very much for your help. This can be a daunting task for someone who hasn't had to deal with any legal matters before.

L x

Coupon-mad

You have nothing about signage there (whether you know what the signs look like or not), so put them to strict proof that the terms in the alleged contract were clear & prominent, like ixworth did:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5729157

I also think you need to say that the claim form says 'POC to follow' and no POC did follow, which you (and the CCBC complaints team at Northampton) are aware was the deliberate and unfair business model used by CEL in 2017. There was never a POC, they just went for CCJs without any POC. Point out that they have backdated a generic document to make it look like POC were served but they were not, this is disingenuous and misleading. And in any case, the generic POC areso vague as to state no details or facts that give rise to any claim in law, so there was never a cause of action.

I say you also need Henry Greenslade's POPLA words about 'understanding keeper liability' in case your Judge doesn't!! Easy to search for, and it's in the above linked example.