Set aside CCJ with parking session paid

Luvara

Hello, this is my first thread on this forum. I have read the Newbies section and have used some of the tips on the past. I have finished my statement of witness and my draft order, I would like to ask you guys if you can have a look at it before I submit it preferably tomorrow.

Long story short: I parked on 28/02/20 and paid for parking using RingGo. Car was registered at address A, but I was living on address B at the moment. On September I received a Letter of Claim on address B (first time I knew I had been issued a PCN) and replied that I have paid for that parking and attached a copy of the receipt. On 30 Sept they sent me a letter saying that they would put the case on hold until the PPC could revise the evidence.

I moved to address C on 16/10/20 and I have not received any other letter from them. On 23/12/20 I received an alert on Clear Score that a Chancellor was going to be added, but just the case number was referred. I sent an email to the CCBC and received a reply on the 06/01/21 which led me to what the CCJ was related to.

I contacted the University of Hertfordshire and they told me that the parking division has nothing to do with this any more, is it true? Aren't them a voice on this as land owners? 

I also contacted DBC Legal in order to get this set aside but they reply over the phone is that it was too late to do anything. Should I mention this or the previous on the Statement of Witness?

Thanks a lot!

Luvara

STATEMENT OF WITNESS

IN THE NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT BUSINESS CENTRE

Claim No. XXXXX

 

BETWEEN:

Claimant

FIRST PARKING LLP

Claimant solicitor 

DCB LEGAL LTD

– and –

Defendant

XXXXX

_________________________________

WITNESS STATEMENT

_________________________________

I, MR XXXXX of XXXXX being the Defendant in this case will support state as follows;

1. I make this Witness Statement in support of the application for an order that the judgment in this case (Claim No. XXXXX Judgment dated 28/11/2020) for:

   A. Set aside the default judgment dated 28 November 2020 as it was not properly served at my current address.

   B. Order for the original claim to be dismissed.

   C. Order for the claimant to pay £255 as reimbursement for the set aside fee.

2. CPR 13.3 states (1) In any other case, the court may set aside or vary a judgment entered under Part 12 if –

    (a) the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim; or

    (b) it appears to the court that there is some other good reason why –

        (i) the judgment should be set aside or varied; or

        (ii) the defendant should be allowed to defend the claim.

3. I understand the claimant obtained a default Judgment against me as the defendant on 25/11/2020. However, this default Judgment has not been served at my current address. I only learnt of the existence of this claim on the 23/12/2020 when I performed a check on my credit report which indicated a CCJ. On this report only the claim number was shown, so I sent an email to the County Court Business Centre asking for further information on this claim. The response from the CCBC was received on the 06/01/2021, which made me aware of the PCN it was related to. 

4. I was first aware of the PCN related to this claim when I received a Letter of Claim dated 18/09/2020 (Exhibit 1.1) on the address XXXXX to which I moved on the 18/11/2019, for which I can provide proof via a Tenancy Agreement for this address (Exhibit 2.1).

5. I replied to this Letter of Claim with a letter dated 23/09/2020 (Exhibit 1.2), for which I received as response via a letter dated 30/09/2020 (Exhibit 1.3) explaining that the case was going to remain on hold while reviewing the case and supporting documentation further.

6. Between the date of the letter on Exhibit 1.3 (30/09/2020) where the claimant communicated that the case was going to remain in hold and the date of the Judgment (25/11/2020) I did not received any other communication from the claimant.

7. I moved to XXXX on the 16/10/2020, for which I can provide proof via a Tenancy Agreement for this address (Exhibit 2.2), and I last collected the mail from my previous address on the 18/10/2020, when I returned the property keys for which I can provide proof if required. I updated the address on my Drivers Licence and the vehicle V5A promptly on time, as well as I updated my electoral roll registration for all which I can provide proof if required.

8. Between the date I moved out from XXXX (18/10/2020) and the date of Judgment (25/11/2020) only 38 days passed, which suggests that either the Claimant issued a further Notice of Claim to a outdated address, or that the Claimant issued Court Proceedings despite having communicated on the 30/09/2020 that the case was being put on hold.

9. Even if the Court is not satisfied that my case meets the criteria relating to a mandatory set aside due to defective service (13.2), I will say that I also meet the criteria for the CCJ to be set aside on the grounds of 13.3:

  (1) In any other case, the court may set aside or vary a judgment entered under Part 12 if – 

    (a) the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim; or

    (b) it appears to the court that there is some other good reason why - 

       (i) the judgment should be set aside or varied; or

       (ii)the defendant should be allowed to defend the claim.

  (2) In considering whether to set aside or vary a judgment entered under Part 12, the matters to which the court must have regard include whether the person seeking to set aside the judgment made an application to do so promptly.

10. To support point 9, I would like to draw attention to Exhibit 3.1 which shows a parking receipt for vehicle XXXX on the University of Hertfordshire parking on the 28/02/2020, valid for 6 hours, from 9:49AM to 3:49PM. This is the same date and on the same time frame the original contravention allegedly took place.

11. Considering the above I was unable to defend this claim. I believe that the Default Judgement against me was issued incorrectly and thus should be set aside and I ask the Court to kindly consider the reimbursement of the fee of £255 from the claimant should this request be successful, and to allow 14 days for me to submit my defence.

12. According to publicly available information my circumstances are far from being unique. The industry’s persistent failure to use correct and current addresses results in an unnecessary burden for individuals and the justice system across the country.

Furthermore, Prime Minister May publicly pledged to investigate ‘abuse’ of the CCJ System and so called ‘Credit Clamping’ as reported in the Daily Mail article dated 12 September 2016. The Right Honourable Sir Oliver Heald on 23 December 2016 "announced a crackdown on unresolved debts which can damage people’s credit ratings without them knowing. The action comes after concerns were raised that companies were issuing claims to consumers using incorrect addresses."

The Minister added "It cannot be right that people who are unaware of debts can see their lives and finances ruined by county court judgments. That in the digital age, we must ensure companies pursuing unpaid debts make every reasonable effort to contact individuals, rather than simply relying on a letter to an old address.” Furtherance to point 8 raised above.

13. I would like to politely ask the Court to appreciate my lack of knowledge on legal matters when redacting this Statement of Witness, and that I consider myself a law-abiding citizen and I am trying to do what I believe is fair and honest on this case.

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Signed:

Dated:

Luvara

DRAFT ORDER

IN THE XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX COUNTY COURT

Claim No. XXXXXXXX

BETWEEN:

CLAIMANT’S NAME

Claimant

– and –

Defendant

YOUR NAME

_________________________________

DRAFT ORDER

_________________________________

Upon reading the defendant’s application dated ……………….

It is ordered that:

1. The judgment dated [insert date of judgment] be set aside.

2. The Defendant shall file and serve its Defence by 4pm on [insert date].

3. The Claimant do pay the Defendant’s costs of this application to the sum of £255

4. The Claimant has permission to file and serve a reply if so required.

henrik777

I am struggling to work out what you are on about to be honest.

Was the claim issued at an address older than the one you communicated with them from ?

Luvara

Yeah, for many different reasons it took me around 3 months to change the V5A to the new address so it was issued to the old one. 

Later on October 20 I moved again and in there I changed all the details on everything quite quickly.
Should I change some wording to make it clearer?

nosferatu1001

The v5 means nothing once they accessed the dvla once. 

If you were communicating then moved, you should have directly told them to update their records

this means you need to make it clear that they should have realised you had likely moved, and found you. 

Coupon-mad

On 30 Sept they sent me a letter saying that they would put the case on hold until the PPC could revise the evidence.

I moved to address C on 16/10/20 

...and you DIDN'T THINK TO TELL THEM that you moved to Address C? 

Are you joking that you DIDN'T tell the company who were threatening to sue you and who would obviously not know you'd moved?  Wow.

Luvara

...and you DIDN'T THINK TO TELL THEM that you moved to Address C?  

Are you joking that you DIDN'T tell the company who were threatening to sue you and who would obviously not know you'd moved?  Wow.

To be honest, there were a lot of things going on, including a stay on hospital with Covid during that time and this was not on the top of my head. Why? Because I had paid for the parking and I had communicated this to them...

Do you think that will play against me to achieve a successful set aside?

henrik777

Luvara said:

Yeah, for many different reasons it took me around 3 months to change the V5A to the new address so it was issued to the old one. 

Later on October 20 I moved again and in there I changed all the details on everything quite quickly.
Should I change some wording to make it clearer?

So they issued a claim at an address from your V5 and had had communication after the time that they obtained that information which indicated a different address ?

That sounds very much like they had "reason to believe" to me. You need to make this much clearer as it sounds like you have a mandatory set aside sitting waiting to be obtained.

Luvara

henrik777 said:

So they issued a claim at an address from your V5 and had had communication after the time that they obtained that information which indicated a different address ?

That sounds very much like they had "reason to believe" to me. You need to make this much clearer as it sounds like you have a mandatory set aside sitting waiting to be obtained.

Sorry I think I did not understand clearly your first question and have just reviewed it now. The claim was issued at the address from where I communicated with them according to the record on Clear Score.

As I said before, I did not communicate my new change of address to them because I stupidly thought that because I had paid for the parking, they would agree to the PCN to get waived...
I’m getting scared about thinking that I might have screwed it up about not letting them know about my new change of address and how badly can that impact on my application

nosferatu1001

No, make it more clear than that. 
How long between the time you LAST communicated with them and the time they issued the claim? Days? Weeks? Months?
Stop being bloody scared here
It helps you not at all.
You know, because you have by now read about set asides, that there are two reasons you can get a set aside. CPR13.2 is the "not served" section, 13.3 is the "any other good reason"
So you cant really, unless the gap youve been told to tell us above is a long time, go for CPR13.2. But that doesnt mean youre lost. You just have to explain that they issued a claim at your old address - so this is not a case of you ignoring a claim form - and you have a good reason to set aside in that you have a good defence (look, see that template defence on the newbies thread? guess what! ) 

But in future, dont assume. THey have six year to claim and until you are told it it cancelled, you have to assume they can try coutr anytime. You must keep potential debt claimants aware of your address. Otherwise you end up in this situation.