I desperately need help writing a defence for a £750 county court claim from DCBL (First Parking)

ridjuan98

Hi everyone I hope all is well. I write this extremely stressed and in need of urgent help as I have no experience in this field or matter whatsoever, I have no knowledge of laws or the court process or anything, and I am extremely worried about what will happen. I received a country court claim form from DCBL for 4 unpaid parking charges in 2019 from First Parking that I did not receive any notices for whatsoever, I have not received a single one of these notices that they claimed to have sent to me. I then received a letter from DCBL to which I replied by email and post. they then replied to me by email which was sent to my junk mail which I completely did not notice as I was expecting them to reply to me by post as I had communicated with them by post. then to my shock, I received a county court claim (which I have acknowledged) and have until 2 pm on the 2nd of June to reply. I am really stressed out about this amongst other things going on in my life right now and I have no idea about how to write my defence. Please if anyone can help me at all I would be grateful beyond measure. I have all the images of signs and notices to keeper etc at hand so please tell me what you need to asses the situation better. thanks.

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

ridjuan98

hi @KeithP, i've acknowledged the claim and I actually gave them a call today, they said I have up unit the 2nd of June to file my defence. I filed my acknowledgment on the 9th of May and the issue date on the claim form is 30th of April. The only problem now is I'm really confused about how to go about my defence as I've never done anything like this before. Thank you so much for your response and please let me know what information you need

KeithP

ridjuan98 said:

hi @KeithP, i've acknowledged the claim and I actually gave them a call today, they said I have up unit the 2nd of June to file my defence. I filed my acknowledgment on the 9th of May and the issue date on the claim form is 30th of April.

They are right with your Defence filing deadline but there might be something useful here...

With a Claim Issue Date of 30th April, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 2nd June 2021 to file your Defence.

That's less than one week away but plenty of time to produce a Defence.

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.

ridjuan98

Thank you so much! I’ve been looking at the second post in the newbies thread and had a look at the template for defence and i’m just wondering do I copy and paste it and just enter my details instead/ specific information about my case? I just don’t know how to tailor the defence template towards my claim and any extra points I can mention in my defence, I just don’t want to make any mistakes at all in fear of losing the case and having to go to court

Redx

Use the template defence in announcements near the top of the forum adapting paragraphs 2 and 3 as required

Fruitcake

Send an SAR as per the NEWBIES to the scammers. This should flush out the original NTKs to see what they say, and where they were (allegedly) sent. You will need to include proof of ID with the request such as a copy of claim form, or a copy of the V5C (assuming it is correct and up to date), or two redacted utility bills or bank/card statements.
Do not send photo ID.

Check the details on your V5C. Don't guess, dig it out and double check that ALL the details are correct.

brianposter

ridjuan98 said:

I just don’t want to make any mistakes at all in fear of losing the case and having to go to court

Do not be frightened of going to court. It is an interesting experience even if you lose.

Le_Kirk

Your defence will be to refute everything that the claimant states in the Particulars of Claim (POC) which will be on the claim form from CCBC.  It might be simplified to "failing to adhere to terms and conditions" which usually means you didn't pay or didn't pay enough or you overstayed or it was permit only or you parked outside of the lines.  What does the POC state?  Have you moved and failed to update your V5C, although it seems strange if that is the case that you did not receive any PCNs but did receive the court claim form.

Coupon-mad

Why not just read any other defence/claim thread, and see how easily everyone else manages to add some facts into para 3?

It is not reading other threads that causes a problem for some newbies.  Read around and learn from others.

ridjuan98

hello everyone sorry about the late reply been really stressed out, but I've attached all images of signs and notices to keeper and the contract at the bottom of this post. these were all sent to me when I sent DCBL a CPR31.14 request. Is there anything I can use in my defence from this information? Anything that will help me fight this claim at all such as contradictions within their claim? (I'm really stuck)

The defence template I am using is the one from the newbies thread in post 2 which requires alteration of paragraph 2 and 3, but I'm really stuck about what to write in paragraph 3 to defend myself from the total of 4 PCN's amounting to £760 now. It's really obvious also that they are slapping on additional fees that are out of nowhere, apparently, this is pretty common of DCBL to do this and could be used in my defence? Please let me know what I can write in section 3 based off the information I have attached below and thank you so much again guys I appreciate it hugely, god bless you all. I've got until 2nd of May Tuesday 4pm