County Court Business Centre

Bjoseph

A friend of mine recently received a PCN for overstaying time at a hospital car park (back in May). They had originally paid to park for 1 hour, but overstayed by 30 mins, and were in turn issued with a PCN through the post. The parking operator is ParkingEye and they enforce through ANPR cameras. My friend initially ignored the charge and has received one further letter from ParkingEye and more recently a claim form from County Court Business Centre (CCBC) based in Northampton. I understand CCBC only handles the administration of cases and this is therefore not an official county court summons. The charge was originally £60 and now it has risen to £175 including 'court fees' and legal representative's costs'.


Please advise what they should do next. Thank you.

Exemplar

Pay............

Quentin

It is a court claim!

Your friend should be directed to the newbies FAQ thread near the top of the forum

Post #2 there covers Court claims and how to deal with them right through to the hearing

The first job is the AOS

A walkthrough on how to do this is in that post

Once done it buys an extra 14 days to get the defence in

Please get your friend to tell us the issue date of the claim

Eminowa

You need to put in a defence, we would help you on this forum. £175 is a huge amount to pay, and it's unfair according to consumer rights...we would help you here, just stay with us. When is the county issue date

Eminowa

@Exemplar. Are you a parking operator?

Bjoseph

Thank you Quentin and Eminowa.


I will suggest they take a look at the FAQs as directed.


The issue date was 29th July.

KeithP

Bjoseph wrote: »

The issue date was 29th July.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th July, you have until Monday 19th August 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 file linked from post #2 of [URL="https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread[/URL]. About ten minutes work - no thinking required.

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Monday 2nd September 2019 to file your Defence.

That's nearly three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the 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 "defence received". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to keep you under pressure.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of [URL="https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread[/URL] to find out exactly what to do with it.

Post #2 of the NEWBIES thread also contains everything else you might need on your journey to court.

Coupon-mad

I understand CCBC only handles the administration of cases and this is therefore not an official county court summons.

It is a genuine county court claim.

It would be STUPID to just pay it in full though, so that was dodgy 'advice' above.

An overstay is hard to argue v Parking Eye and they REALLY should not have ignored this, that was a silly move, given that the NHS Trust could have cancelled it with one complaint being made! Not now, too late.

Why did they overstay and were they held up by a clinic or appointment overrunning?

They need to read defences that mention the NHS Car parking principles and copy a recent one and show us the draft here. Search the forum now for those words.

But get them to read the sticky and do the (easy) AOS online on MCOL first.

Redx

Bjoseph wrote: »

The charge was originally £60 and now it has risen to £175 including 'court fees' and legal representative's costs'.

not true at all

the original charge was the £100 default tariff on the signs , reduced to £60 for early payment

the extra £75 is the legal fees etc on top of that original £100 charge

check if the NTK arrived within 14 days, to see if POFA applies to the keeper

if the NTK was POFA compliant , then its pointless trying to use it to the keepers advantage, in which case it needs to be a driver based appeal, or a keeper appeal where the driver is known and can provide witness testimony etc

so decide which viewpoint the defence will be argued from, depending on who the keeper and driver were, plus POFA compliance or not (PE usually comply with POFA and can and do take people to court)

this should have been appealed at the time and taken to POPLA, which is something a judge might say

this should have also been taken up with PALS at the time , so another glaring oversight, please tell your friend to read up on correct procedures and stop ignoring parking tickets