County Court Civil enforcement PCN

Pigsmightfly1010

Hi,
Such a long story but basically I’ve been harassed by civil enforcement and their fake debt collectors letters since apparently overstaying in one of their car parks(morrisons) for 28 minutes in Nov 2017. As they were demanding £100 I ignored the letters and thought nothing would come of it. 🤦!♀️Anyhow I then got the county court letter though and replied from information I found off here. I then sent them my defence. My main defence is poor signage by the parent parking bays and not much of it! I remember the day in question as I waited in the post office, shopped at Morrison’s, went to Poundland, and also had a baby in a buggy! What a nightmare. I’ll be honest it wasn’t a very good defence looking at it now. Weeks later I got another letter from county court to say the POC have been struck out pursuant to CPR PT16. CEL had until 16th Nov to serve substitute fully pleaded particulars of claim. In default the claim would be struck out. Of course CEL filed their response in time and now I’ve got another letter from the courts asking to deliver to the court and to the claimant a defence complying with CPR 16. legible and if possible typewritten!!! Crazy. Also they’ve asked I reply to all the assertions made by the claimant. Any advise much appreciated. Thank you 😊

Redx

so do as they say and draft and submit and amended defence to the court and to the claimant

see post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread near the top of this forum for inspiration, starting with the BARGEPOLE defence of your choosing and adapt it accordingly


draft it in WORD, print it , sign and date it , scan it back to pc and save as a pdf


then submit the signed pdf

The_Deep

Have you complained to your MP?

It is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business. Hopefully that will take place in the near future. The Bill has passed through the HOC without hitch, and goes to the Lords soon. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers. Read this one which I wrote earlier

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. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially 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.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

Pigsmightfly1010

Hi, thank you for your reply. I did originally use one of the defence templates from here and emailed the courts with that defence.
I wasn’t sure If I could amend the defence as lots of threads on here say once you’ve submitted the defence then it can’t be changed.
Although like you say, I’ll do as the courts have asked and reply to the points CEL are claiming I’ve breached.
Due to not working full time anymore (due to having a baby)I didn’t have acces to WORD and my laptop had something called wordpad!? So maybe this was another problem for the courts. It also wasn’t signed as I emailed the defence so this was another issue.
I’ll redo my defence and ask a friend to transfer to WORD. Then it’ll need to be printed , dated and signed. At this stage should I be posting the documents or emailing? Or does it not matter?
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to scan the signed document with my printer I have at home.
I’m pretty sure they’ve timed this before Xmas on purpose. It couldn’t have come at a worse time to be honest with so many kids activities going and I’ve only got until 19th December.
Thanks again for your help

Redx

if the court have told you to file an amended defence now that you have the amended POC then you should do so (but NOT unless the court has ordered it)

the threads saying you cannot change it is the advice given when no subsequent court order has been made (so for first timers only, not like when yours has been changed to give you better details of the claim and you need a new amended defence submitting)

you can use WORDPAD, no problem, although you may wish to download and install LIBREOFFICE or OPENOFFICE or something similar (or NOTEPAD++ )

you can save as a pdf if that is possible, alternatively use an online website to change from wordpad format to pdf once completed, no big deal and easy to do

so yes use WORDPAD for now , save as normal, then see if it will save as a pdf , if not use a pdf conversion tool or website to do the work, or use LIBREOFFICE instead

if you can sign a piece of paper with your signature you can either scan it or take a picture of it on a digital camera or your mobile phone and add it as a digital signature to your document , google digital signature for help and advice for this
this is instead of printing and signing it

ideally you email it, but can post it with proof of posting, check what the amended paperwork says to see how they want it to be sent and to where, how and where does it say it should be sent ? also email to the claimant too

this is "think outside of the box" time, there is no "cant" , only "I dont know"

once we know what you "cant" do, we can tell you suitable and free alternatives so that you DO KNOW from now on

so start in WORDPAD, and save as normal

then install LIBREOFFICE for free and use the WORD alternative called WRITER , import the wordpad doc (or copy and paste and adjust as required) , save as a docx and then save again as a pdf (publish it) and attach your digital signature to the bottom of the document before saving again

Pigsmightfly1010

The_Deep wrote: »

Have you complained to your MP?

It is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business. Hopefully that will take place in the near future. The Bill has passed through the HOC without hitch, and goes to the Lords soon. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers. Read this one which I wrote earlier

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. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially 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.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

Hi, thank you also for your reply, I’m not sure if I’m replying int he right section here(apologies) I’ve not posted on here before.
I will be writing to my MP, I hadn’t already because to be quite honest I had thought as the last correspondence mentioned the claim being struck out then that would be the end of it! I was obviously wrong.
I contacted Morrison’s direct as I’d been parked on their side of the carpark but I was advised I’d need to visit the site office.
I went down to the office only for it to be a locked security office! Absolute joke! They basically sent me on a wild goose chase with a toddler in tow.
So yes I will be writing to my MP to advise how disgusted I am with the whole system. I honestly can’t even believe it’s legal. £100 charge which apparently is now £250!? Absolutely disgusting.

Thanks again, back to the drawing board..

I don’t plan on funding their Xmas turkey this year.

Redx

you are in the correct section


bear in mind that this is where the MP,s are up to , despite the 6 letter B word


https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/parkingcodeofpractice.html

Pigsmightfly1010

Redx wrote: »

if the court have told you to file an amended defence now that you have the amended POC then you should do so (but NOT unless the court has ordered it)

the threads saying you cannot change it is the advice given when no subsequent court order has been made (so for first timers only, not like when yours has been changed to give you better details of the claim and you need a new amended defence submitting)

you can use WORDPAD, no problem, although you may wish to download and install LIBREOFFICE or OPENOFFICE or something similar (or NOTEPAD++ )

you can save as a pdf if that is possible, alternatively use an online website to change from wordpad format to pdf once completed, no big deal and easy to do

so yes use WORDPAD for now , save as normal, then see if it will save as a pdf , if not use a pdf conversion tool or website to do the work, or use LIBREOFFICE instead

if you can sign a piece of paper with your signature you can either scan it or take a picture of it on a digital camera or your mobile phone and add it as a digital signature to your document , google digital signature for help and advice for this
this is instead of printing and signing it

ideally you email it, but can post it with proof of posting, check what the amended paperwork says to see how they want it to be sent and to where, how and where does it say it should be sent ? also email to the claimant too

this is "think outside of the box" time, there is no "cant" , only "I dont know"

once we know what you "cant" do, we can tell you suitable and free alternatives so that you DO KNOW from now on

so start in WORDPAD, and save as normal

then install LIBREOFFICE for free and use the WORD alternative called WRITER , import the wordpad doc (or copy and paste and adjust as required) , save as a docx and then save again as a pdf (publish it) and attach your digital signature to the bottom of the document before saving again

Ok thank you, I appreciate the response, I’ll try and get this done later. At the moment I have a two year old bouncing the walls. It’s hard to concentrate on anything.
It’s been ordered that
1. The defendant do by 19 Dec deliver to the court and to the claimant a defence to the claim complying with CPR 16 (doesn’t say where but the address is at the bottom so perhaps I should post and email?)
2. The defence must
I) be legible, if possible, typewritten ( so they are implying it wasn’t legible!)
ii) be set out in numbered paragraphs ( I thought it was!)
iii) respond to all the assertions made by the claimant and set out the basis upon which the claim is disputed. ( their original POC were very limited just said that I’d overstayed in the carpark so now I’ve basically got to respond to the POC which they should have send me in the first place!)

It goes on.. but I don’t want to quote to much in case the claim can be tracked!

I haven’t got long to sort this out so I’ll try and sort this out later
Thanks again

The_Deep

£250 is far more than the Law allows for this sort of claim. The down market solicitors whom the PPCs engage know this, but, because they are solicitors, know that a lot of people will pay up.

It is in fact double charging and non claimable debt collectors' add ons. Imo, this is fraud, or, at the very least, improper conduct.

Were this to get to court and they won, the judge would be unlikely to award the claimant more than £175 - £200.

I urge you to report this grubby law firm to their regulatory body, the SRA.

https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page

as I am sure they do not condone this conduct.

nosferatu1001

Yes, you have been ordered to file an amended defence, so you must do so
You must admit or deny every one of their allegations

KeithP

Pigsmightfly1010 wrote: »

It’s been ordered that
1. The defendant do by 19 Dec deliver to the court and to the claimant a defence to the claim complying with CPR 16 (doesn’t say where but the address is at the bottom so perhaps I should post and email?)

Which court has sent this?
Is the the County Court Business Centre in Northamptom or somewhere else?