Received a Claim of Money letter

The_Deep

They may well be interfering with your rights to peaceful enjoyment, probably an offence under the Landlords and Tenants Acts. Consider therefore lodging a counter claim for harassment. They cannot therefore drop the claim at the last minute, and it will cost them £££s


This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the HofC recently.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.

.

Coupon-mad

DEFENCE STATEMENT

should be

DEFENCE

and you seem to be missing point #3 in your latest draft.

Are you now adding back in a reference to the Beavis case to distinguish your case from that one?

jmj2010

Hello again,

So I have made a massive c*ckup.. I wrongly worked out the deadline for my defence and have today received a default judgement in favour of UKCPM ordering me to pay £282.

Is there anything I can do?

I did submit AoS in time but have not yet submitted my defence, I wrongly thought I had another week.

The default judgement says
"If you did reply to the claim form and believe judgement has been entered wrongly in default, you may apply to the court office giving your reasons why the judgement should be set aside. An application form is available for you to use and you will need to pay a fee. A hearing may be arranged and you will be told when and where it will take place"

Does this apply in my case or does it mean if I think they have made an error (not me)?

I also found this on another site..
Irregular Default Judgments

The law distinguishes between two types of default judgments: regular and irregular judgments. A default judgment will be irregular if it has been entered when:

The defendant has filed an acknowledgement of service or a defence;
The time for filing the acknowledgement or defence has not yet expired;
The defendant has made an application to strike out the claim or for summary judgment;
The defendant paid off the whole claim, including any costs and interest, before judgment was entered;
The defendant has filed an admission to the debt and asked for time to pay.

A default judgment entered in any of these circumstances is not valid in law and the court must set it aside.


Consequence of not filing an acknowledgment of service
10.2 If:
(a) a defendant fails to file an acknowledgment of service within the period specified in rule 10.3; and
(b) does not within that period file a defenceicon in accordance with Part 15 or serve or file an admission in accordance with Part 14,
the claimant may obtain default judgment if Part 12 allows it.

Quentin

You do look to have messed up and have no grounds to attempt a set aside

If you agree then you can either pay it off in full within a month of the judgement to get the ccj removed from the register

If you cannot pay then approach the claimant with a suggested payment plan

Though that will mean the judgement remains on your record for 6 years

(Or ignore it and hope the claimant doesn't take enforcement action against you)

jmj2010

Thanks for the quick reply.

I do agree, it's completely my fault. Whether I had a week left or not I should have filed the defence earlier.

Knowing Gladstones I'm sure they would pursue it. I just hate to give them the satisfaction of winning!

Quentin

Although it's a disaster all round (not least for the helpers who have wasted their time!) the silver lining is others reading this will realise that when it gets to court stage you got to be on the ball or lose by default

All claimants worth the salt in this game can be expected to have the dates for default judgement application in the diary

System

Knowing Gladstones I'm sure they would pursue it. I just hate to give them the satisfaction of winning!

It's not Gladstones fault - its their computer.

What a lot of people fail to realise is that this is all computer driven with little of no people (i.e. overheads) which is why ParkingEye were sold for an eye watering £235 mn (see what I did there)

jmj2010

Quentin wrote: »

Although it's a disaster all round (not least for the helpers who have wasted their time!)

I apologise for this and thank everyone for their help.

I am on the verge of going bankrupt as it is which would mean losing my job, I've already lost my flat last month. This is probably the straw that broke the camels back.

Fighting a ticket like this for the first time is pretty overwhelming at the best of times, with everything else going on I just couldn't keep on top of it.

Hopefully others will read it and not make the same mistake.

Thanks again

Coupon-mad

If you are on the verge of going bankrupt then don't pay this. Surely you can include it low down in your list of creditors so the scammers get nowt. This is NOT a priority debt.

jmj2010

I'm pretty sure court judgements received before going bankrupt can't be included.