Set aside CCJ - Court not issuing refund

CCJissue

Hi all,

Firstly, thank you for all the other forums, and posters who successfully helped me have my CCJ set aside.

It was from a retail park ticket, which due to moving addresses, I never received correspondence about. This was satisfactory to the courts, and I won at my hearing. (Not much of a hearing when the opposition doesn't show).

Anyway, to the point:

I won the hearing, and the judge set aside my judgement. I no longer have a CCJ woop woop!
They told me, they would hold onto the fee's until the original ticket itself drew to a close. Eg, CEL would have to send me the original ticket, and i could argue it or not, etc, and once that was resolved, I would get my £255 back.

I was told CEL had 14 days to issue this new ticket. It's now been 26/27 days. I got in touch with the court 10 days ago to request my £255 back as the matter was (from my PoV) closed if they hadn't got in touch.

I received this back:
"Dear Sir
With reference to your email below, we are unable to refund your application fee to you as the fee was for the court to process your application, which it did.
You will have to ask the Judge at the hearing to award you your costs back from the claimant.
Regards"

I've already had my hearing, and as above, won.... so what is that about? Everyone else on this site seemed to just get a refund once won.. any help please?

Thanks,
Michael

waamo

You had a hearing to set aside the ccj. You are waiting on the original hearing to be re heard. You might consider it closed but the court does not.

Until the court says it is over with then it continues.

nosferatu1001

What does the Order from the court, that you have in front of you as thats what formally sets aside the judgement, say about Costs?
Did you include a draft order saying costs to be paid if they fail to serve the form?
Dont guess. .

CCJissue

Called up and had an argument. They said I can't get a refund. Ever. It's not part of the process. I pay (and lose) £255 just to have it set aside, and I have no legal grounds to have a refund. The only way is to pay another £250, and sue CEL...

That cannot be the case surely, from everything I've read on here.

CCJissue

1. Judgement herein date 21 March 2017 be set aside
2. In the event that the claimant wishes to pursue this claim, all previous comms sent to the Deendant at the other address be res-sent to him at the address below within 14 days and given sufficient time to respond
3. Proceeding are stayed until the claimaint certifies to the court that the time or compliance with the aforesaid notices has expired
4. Upon removal of the stay the proceeding are to be re-served on the defend at...

I'll be honest, I don't totally understand it. All I understood from the face to face was she told me to wait 14 days, and if they haven't contacted me, I'll be due a refund. If not, I'll have to follow the ticket process as normal, and a balance will be reached at the end.

nosferatu1001

You are not entitled to a refund from the court. You paid them for a service, they provided it

You do not understand a key difference
CEL do not "refund" the set aside fee, they pay it to you as costs of the claim but this ONLY happens if a claim hearing occurs. It wont do - CEL will happily let this sit in limbo. Only the court can refund (as you FUNDed them in the first place), and they only do so If you dont get what you paid for. But you did.

Youre arguing with the wrong people, and worse, youre arguing with the only people that can feasibly help you

Sadly the Order contains nothing stating costs are reserved, and they are not in breach of the court order. I am guessing you did not research this and draft your OWN order? that looks like a court one

To me it reads as:
1) The judgement is set aside
2) IF CEL *wants* to continue, they have 14 days to do so
3) Proceedings are on hold unless CEL has complied with para 2 (this is the weirdly wored bit, I think that is right?)
4) Once the hold is removed, they have to re-serve (send) the forms etc to you the defendant.

It doenst cost £250 to sue them, it costs £25 for amounts under I think £500. You can easily check online

However, rather than do that, you could try a POLITE letter to the people you have just abused over the phone and state that as the claimant has not continued the claim, no quesiton of costs has been ocnisdered, and you woludl like the court to summarily assess costs of the set aside only - as this is a known sum.

Coupon-mad

CCJissue wrote: »

Called up and had an argument. They said I can't get a refund. Ever. It's not part of the process. I pay (and lose) £255 just to have it set aside, and I have no legal grounds to have a refund. The only way is to pay another £250, and sue CEL...

That cannot be the case surely, from everything I've read on here.

You have completely missed the point. Of course the court doesn't refund the fee. You paid to set aside, and you got that.

You have not even had your court hearing yet to defend the claim itself.

And CEL might well discontinue, so we hope you covered that possibility by asking the Judge at the set aside hearing to 'reserve costs' and to issue an order that says that CEL have to pay your £255 (and other costs for travel/loss of leave/salary for attending at least one hearing) if they now discontinue or do not comply with court directions to progress the claim.

The_Deep

If they were to take this to court they might struggle. Many judges regard these wrong VRN claims as a trifle, and the Law does not concern itself with trifles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

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

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. It has even been suggested that some of these companies have links with organised crime.

Watch the video of the Second Reading and committee stage in the House of Commons recently. MPs have a very low opinion of this industry.

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

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSitting)

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by in the not too distant future..

DoaM

If CEL decide the drop the claim, and your set-aside costs are not reserved from the set-aside hearing, then your only option would be to raise a claim against CEL to recover those costs.

CCJissue

How would I have reserved them? The judge literally said she would hold onto the funds until the matter was closed and I'd get my money back if I won... CEL have completely given up, the courts have now officially told me its over, yet I'm 255 out of pocket. The judge literally said this wouldn't be the case.

Coupon-mad

You could now write to that Judge by name reminding her that she reserved the matter of costs at the set aside hearing on xx.x.18 and now the C has discontinued, you ask that the court considers acting upon the promise made in court and using their case management powers to order the wasted costs to be paid by the Claimant, given their vexatious claim against a registered keeper who could not be held liable - because CEL chose not to use the POFA provisions for keeper liability - and unreasonable conduct throughout (list it all on a separate sheet, and attach a COSTS SCHEDULE of how much this cost you to set aside/miss a day's work/travel there and park).

I did say above:

CEL might well discontinue, so we hope you covered that possibility by asking the Judge at the set aside hearing to 'reserve costs' and to issue an order that says that CEL have to pay your £255 (and other costs for travel/loss of leave/salary for attending at least one hearing) if they now discontinue or do not comply with court directions to progress the claim.

I hope you did cover that and she agreed that would be the case if discontinued? Sounds like you did and now need to write to her and hopefully claim it.