CEL Defence Help

Tuvaisfairequoi

Hi all,

Firstly I’d like to thank you for all the advice I’ve read and taken in before posting; but now I’m in a situation where I potentially need to draw up a defence for a court action letter I have recieved vs Civil Enforcement Ltd. I have posted on the forums before a few years back but my username contained some sensitive information so I’ve made a new account.

Now for some particulars about my case, there was an apparent breach of t’s+c’s at a ‘free to park for 20 minutes, 50p each hour thereafter’ car park. The registered keeper (Me) received a letter about a £100 (reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days or so) charge due to an overstay of under 4 minutes. (Bearing in mind their lost revenue through this would be a grand total of 50p) they have now ran their supposed costs up to over £250.

I have absolutely no intention of paying this and will be defending with all you wonderful peoples help, I find this industry particularly disgusting and can’t imagine how many vulnerable members of our society get caught up in this scam.

Unfortunately all letters were ignored from original through to ZZPS and finally QDR Solicitors, stupid I know and no excuses but it was a busy time for me, facing redundancy, moving house and more, but I digress.

All the correspondence regarding this situation has been sent to my previous address (including the court claim form) even though the landlord kindly notified one of their ‘debt recovery’ people about an address change (I subsequently received one threatening letter from ZZCP at this address and one from QDR) and I never actually received a LBCC from them at either address.

Before I post a draft of my defence, I’m looking for a bit of advice, as the letters were sent to my precious address, technically I was never given the change of a POPLA appeal, is there any way of pulling it back now or are we long past that? Perhaps it can form part of my defence.

If not, I’m looking for any advice on how to correctly weave in the fact to my defence that it’s under a 4 minute overstay, which surely should be within some kind of fair usage leeway, and surely no court in the land would award £250+ for such a minor infringement and tiny figure of lost revenue. Also I feel that there should be no assumptions drawn as to who was driving the vehicle as it was 7 months ago now and there’s 3 people insured on this vehicle that I happen to be the keeper of.

Thanks in advance for all of your time!

Tuvasfairequoi

KeithP

Do you have a County Court Claim Form?

What is the Issue Date on that form?

Redx

DATE OF ISSUE , POC DETAILS and the amounts claimed + total please

read the BPA CoP on grace periods, clause #13

ps:- an appeal should have gone in to CEL and then a popla appeal made, from the outset (too late now)

dont beat yourself up about ignoring the debt collector letters etc, that is normal forum advice


pps:- there are millions of people who can drive that vehicle legally on the road and are insured to do so , any one of which could have been the driver, not just the 3 insured on it

Tuvaisfairequoi

Thanks for your super speedy help both!

Issue date on the form is 21st Nov, POC is as follows - ‘Claim for comics relating to a parking charge for parking in a private car park managed by the claimant in breach of the terms and conditions (t+c’s). Drivers are allowed to park in accordance with t+c’s of use. ANPR cameras and or manual patrols are used to monitor vehicles entering + exiting the site. Debt + damages claimed to the sum of 182.00 then some reference numbers I’ll avoid to make sure they’re not spying on the case ( I can PM you ) total amount after court fee and legal costs £267.45.

BPA code of practice states the following - ‘13.2 If the parking location is one where parking is normally permitted, you must allow the driver a reasonable
grace period in addition to the parking event before enforcement action is taken. In such instances the grace period must be a minimum of 10 minutes’

Tuvaisfairequoi

‘comics’ above should read ‘monies’ - phone won’t let me edit post for some strange reason!

Redx

whilst we think that parking cowboys are comical, I dont think it will say COMICS, I think your predictive text has gone haywire

no need to pm anyone, the reference numbers and personal info are not required and should not be divulged either, not to anyone

use a laptop, not a phone for this, and edit your post

this is serious, a phone does NOT give you full internet access, its a cut down version with limited options, and is a technical barrier to sorting this out

use proper tools for a proper job

Tuvaisfairequoi

Hi Redx,

You're right, i've moved onto my laptop now and things are a hell of a lot clearer!

KeithP

Tuvaisfairequoi wrote: »

Issue date on the form is 21st Nov,

With a Claim Issue Date of 21st November, you have until Monday 10th December to do the Acknowledgement of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. To do the AoS, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox link from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread.

Having done the AoS, you then have until 4pm on Monday 24th December 2018 to file your Defence.

That's four weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but don't leave it to the very last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as described here:

1) Print your Defence.
2) Sign it and date it.
3) Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
4) Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
5) Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
6) Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
7) Wait for your Directions Questionnaire and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES thread to find out exactly what to do with it.


There is a caveat... I don't know when the courts are open over Christmas. if the courts are not open on Christmas Eve, then you have until 4pm on the next working day to file your Defence.

In my opinion, you would be wise to get your Defence filed some time in the week ending 23rd December.

Tuvaisfairequoi

Thanks for working out the dates for me KeithP, extremely helpful!

I'll get the AoS done tomorrow afternoon, that's well within the timescale.

And just to check, we're beyond the point of any kind of appeal now and must go the court route? I am a little nervous about writing a defence but I feel they can't argue too much against breaking the ToS of BPA considering they've been a member for however many years!

Redx

the APPEAL ship sailed long before MAY became PM , lol

as this is a live court case, its about legal arguments and not parking per se

when you are taken to court, you either defend or pay

if you lose , you pay

you cannot just duck your head into the water and pretend its not happening, nor will a DeLorean transport you back to appeal time either

get with the program

Tuvaisfairequoi

You’re right, it’s too late now.

My best option is to get a solid defence in and hope they discontinue. I’ll get a draft drawn up tonight using various posts here and post it up for critique.

Thanks again for all the help