New "Claim Form" papers from CCBC

mrlfc

Dear All,

A person known to me (nickname Dave) has recently (in the last week), received 2 x "Claim Form" papers from County Court Business Centre (CCBC) for recovery of a debt claimed by a PPC. With this he received a letters from the claimants legal representatives. I have read much of the guidance on this forum and would appreciate some further help on how to proceed from here.

Important info: Dave did appeal the initial charges via the PPC, and the appeals were rejected. He did not know about this forum at that point and merely explained why he thought he had extenuating circumstances. The alleged offence was early 2018.

Dave's plan of action - please let me know if you agree
1. Complete an AoS via MCOL (moneyclaim.gov.uk) (as per the dropbox PDF helpfully posted on the Newbie Thread)
2. To start preparing his defence (hopefully with the kind help of members on this forum) which will i'm sure involve giving extra case details (as he still believes there are extenuating circumstances)

Dave's Questions:
1. Should he still send an SAR to the claimant's legal representatives or has he missed the boat?
2. Can he confirm that if the case goes to court, and if he loses, then he will avoid a CCJ by paying in full within a certain time period (this is his main worry)?
3. Is the CCBC an actual county court and therefore is this an actual Court Claim? Dave has seen much online proposing that these papers are a scam. However they are listed on the gov.uk website.
4. How many of these CCBC claim forms, when defended, actually lead proceed to a court hearing?
5. Should Dave ask for extra time to prepare his defence or is this automatically allocated when he defends the claim?

Thank you for your help on behalf of Dave - happy to give more details if required.

KeithP

Can you please post the Issue Dates on each of Dave's Claim Forms?


To answer Dave's questions:

1. Yes.

2. Yes.

3. Yes.

4. Sorry, I have no idea.

5. Extra time will be granted when Dave does the Acknowledgement of Service.

mrlfc

Thank you Keith P. I deliberately left out the Issue Dates fo fear of being identified by the claimants legal team. Just wanted to check what you thought of this before posting.

Redx

3) is NO, it is not a county court, its a government office manned by civil servants

if you google the county court in Northampton its a different address and postcode


however, it is a genuine court claim under MCOL (online) because they do all of the england and wales court allocations , apart from Salford which handle manual claims by claimants, so 2 centres deal with online and manual


if you give the date of issue, KeithP will tell you when the AOS must be done by, plus when the defence must be returned or emailed by, if you dont , he cant


and 2) , pay IN FULL within one month to get the CCJ removed and the credit rating restored

The_Deep

Tell Dave to read this then complain to his 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.

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.

KeithP

mrlfc wrote: »

I deliberately left out the Issue Dates fo fear of being identified by the claimants legal team.

OK.

Please pass on my good luck wishes to Dave.

beamerguy

mrlfc wrote: »

Thank you Keith P. I deliberately left out the Issue Dates fo fear of being identified by the claimants legal team. Just wanted to check what you thought of this before posting.

Dave needs to talk us but ...... are your really Dave

Coupon-mad

How many of these CCBC claim forms, when defended, actually lead proceed to a court hearing?

Most, when defended and where people don't just roll over and cry.

But you will already know from the NEWBIES thread that we win 99% of the time.

mrlfc

Thank you all for your feedback and comments, it is really is appreciated. The Aos has now been completed for both claims (the easy bit!).

Please correct me if i'm wrong on any of these points; I have read all of the guidance in detail but i'm sure I will miss things:

- If the Issue Date was the 4th, then presumably that gives 33 days from this date to file a defence? This is 6th of February by my calculations. The hard work now begins!

- I will now send an SAR to the PPC data protection officer - how do I find their email address?! I'm using the template as shown in this link. legalbeagles.info/library/guides_and_letters/court/subject-access-request/. Does anyone know how long it takes for court dates to be set? I'm wondering whether the PPC will just delay supplying the data until after the court date.

I am going to post the full defence here but if I do, it will be obvious to the solicitors as to which claims I am talking about (even with the censorship guidance in NEWBIES), because of how specific the details are: The question is, does that even matter? My feeling is that i am being over cautious here......

KeithP

Yes, your date calculation is correct.

With a Claim Issue Date of 4th January, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 6th February 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over three 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 suggested here:

Print your Defence.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. 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'.
   
5. Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive a copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to put you under pressure.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

Coupon-mad

The question is, does that even matter?

No, because they will see that defence sooner rather than later, anyway!

Dave did nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong to be scammed like this.

Don't forget to push at every stage to get the claims merged into one hearing:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75104232#Comment_75104232