Civil Enforcement Ltd Court Claim Letter - Help....

parkingdinosaur

Hi

I'm hoping someone can please advise and help us, although we haven't helped ourselves in any way from the beginning by being stupid.

We received a parking ticket back in July 2019 from Civil Enforcement Ltd for overstaying duration by 14 minutes at Debenhams car park in Guildford. The charge was something crazy like £100, so me being a dinosaur and not realising things have changed I have stupidly been throwing all the letters straight in the bin ever since. I am also unsure who was driving me or my wife.

My wife as the register keeper has now received Court Claim form and they are claiming for £275.71 🙁

Is there any way I can fight this? I don't really have any defence at all as I never took any pictures of the car park or the signs etc and now it's closed off with shutters down due to lockdown and I need to put our defense forward before it re opens. I don't even have the original parking ticket or any of the letters. Am I totally screwed? or can I contest the charge saying its excessive? And maybe state a few general observations like poor signage or I wasn’t aware I was entering a contact. I’m not very good at this sort of thing so want to keep my defence as brief as possible and hope for the best.

This has come at a really bad time with Covid19 really affecting my business (I'm self-employed, so no decent government support) and Christmas coming up with 3 children. Any help and advice would be really appreciated, even if it helps gets the fine down a little. I'm hoping the judge is sympathetic and agrees that these charges are ludicrous. I know I haven't helped us from the word go by being stupid but I have learnt from my mistake the hard way with this court claim.

I received the letter on the 30th October and have since complete the acknowledgement of service online to say I intend to defend all of this claim. I did not provide them with any financial details so hoping that was the correct move? My wife is willing to attend court and I can only hope that Civil Enforcement don't show up, does anyone know if they attend often?

Thanking you all in advance. A charity donation will be made for the help. I'd much rather give money to a worthy cause than these cowboys.

Many Thanks

Parking Dinosaur

Le_Kirk

Best advice I can give is to read the NEWBIE sticky, it's on page one of the forum and if you scroll up to the second post, all the advice and the process from claim form to court appearance is there for you.  What is the Date of Issue of the claim form.  If you post that here @KeithP will be along to give you some guidance on deadlines and where to find the standard defence.

Coupon-mad

My wife is willing to attend court and I can only hope that Civil Enforcement don't show up, does anyone know if they attend often?
Of course they do and we win 99% of them. 

Hearings are currently by phone or video - read the thread by @Old_Bird_65 which is the only CEL one that I attended as lay rep. 

Umkomaas

so me being a dinosaur an ostrich and not realising things have changed I have stupidly been throwing all the letters straight in the bin ever since.

Fixed that for you. 2012 heralded the demise of the dinosaurs! 🙂

parkingdinosaur

Le_Kirk said:

Best advice I can give is to read the NEWBIE sticky, it's on page one of the forum and if you scroll up to the second post, all the advice and the process from claim form to court appearance is there for you.  What is the Date of Issue of the claim form.  If you post that here @KeithP will be along to give you some guidance on deadlines and where to find the standard defence.

thanks for your help. The claim for issue date is 30th October. I have complete the acknowledgement of service 2 days ago to say I would be defending all of the claim.

parkingdinosaur

Coupon-mad said:

My wife is willing to attend court and I can only hope that Civil Enforcement don't show up, does anyone know if they attend often?
Of course they do and we win 99% of them. 

Hearings are currently by phone or video - read the thread by @Old_Bird_65 which is the only CEL one that I attended as lay rep. 

thank you, 99% win rate, excellent. Even with no decent defence like me? I will try and find the @old_Bird_65 case now to have a read up.

parkingdinosaur

Umkomaas said:

so me being a dinosaur an ostrich and not realising things have changed I have stupidly been throwing all the letters straight in the bin ever since.

Fixed that for you. 2012 heralded the demise of the dinosaurs! 🙂

lol, yep Ostrich is probably a better choice as I have been burying my head in the sand over this and now panicking. 

Le_Kirk

parkingdinosaur said:

Le_Kirk said:

Best advice I can give is to read the NEWBIE sticky, it's on page one of the forum and if you scroll up to the second post, all the advice and the process from claim form to court appearance is there for you.  What is the Date of Issue of the claim form.  If you post that here @KeithP will be along to give you some guidance on deadlines and where to find the standard defence.

thanks for your help. The claim for issue date is 30th October. I have complete the acknowledgement of service 2 days ago to say I would be defending all of the claim.

OK, @KeithP will be along with some deadlines.

KeithP

parkingdinosaur said:

Le_Kirk said:

Best advice I can give is to read the NEWBIE sticky, it's on page one of the forum and if you scroll up to the second post, all the advice and the process from claim form to court appearance is there for you.  What is the Date of Issue of the claim form.  If you post that here @KeithP will be along to give you some guidance on deadlines and where to find the standard defence.

The claim for issue date is 30th October. I have complete the acknowledgement of service 2 days ago to say I would be defending all of the claim.

With a Claim Issue Date of 30th October, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 2nd December 2020 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.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Coupon-mad

parkingdinosaur said:

thank you, 99% win rate, excellent. Even with no decent defence like me? I will try and find the @old_Bird_65 case now to have a read up.

You do realise the person's name links to their threads in 2 clicks, in a nano-second?  Their name is a hyperlink to their profile!

parkingdinosaur

Thanks everyone. Does anyone have a link to the standard defence please?  I'll then use this as a base for mine. Sorry I'm useless at this sort of thing, hence me only wanting to put a basic defence forward in case I mess it up as I don't really have anything to defend myself with.