CCJ added on Nov 2020 that i dont recognise

ThisnotThat

nic_c said:

ThisnotThat said:

taztheman said:

sourcrates said:

The court papers would go to the last known address of the debtor, the address the car was registered at.

For a set aside to be successful, you must satisfy two points.

Point one - you must have good reason why you did not respond to the court papers.
Point two - you must have a defence with a reasonable chance of success.

A defence to this would be, it was not my car, there were no signs, the ticket was incorrectly issued, etc etc, you get the idea.

Not being in receipt of the court papers alone does not constitute a defence to this.

The pcn offence date was 18/08/19. Surely the court letters wouldn't have arrived before 06/12/19 (date we vacated property) as the enforcement comoamy would have issued reminders ( which we obviously also dont remember receiving).
Also the car was sold around mid-November 2019. 
This is my only defence offcourse which can easily be proven (flight tickets,  passport entrance stamps). Also we are fairly confident that no PCN was not delivered in the three months post offence date, after which we no longer were in the UK.

If the papers were sent to your last known address, that is all that is needed.  You not living there anymore isn't really relevant, otherwise all people would need to do to avoid being taken to court is to move address.

You also need a defence against the debt itself, which you don't have yet as you don't know what it relates to.

Not necessarily as cut and dry. There have been plenty of cases where a company has issued to an old address that have been then set aside. Parking companies are notorious for using the address from DVLA they get initially and then not checking later, ignoring returned post with undelivered Royal Mail stickers on, or marked RTS, etc...

I said if they were sent to the last known address, not an old address.

None of the rest of it is particularly relevant here.  The OP left the country, and presumably, the registered keeper was not updated to some address in the Middle East.  I would imagine the car was either sold or put in storage but either way it seems highly unlikely the details were updated with a new address the OP had for correspondence.  If it had I'm sure the OP would have told us about it.  It's clear the OP just left the country and that was the end of it.  As such the parking company, not that I'm much of a fan of them, couldn't really have done much more.

ThisnotThat

taztheman said:

nic_c said:

taztheman said:

Can the court at least confirm the dates the hearing letters were issued, i mean if the court proceedings (i.e. first letters) didn't start till let's say February March, surely it would be a point in my favour or not.

What hearing?
For the CCJ a Claim form will have been sent by the Court and when there was no response, the parking company will simply have requested Judgment. No hearing.

If you are focussing on not being aware of the Claim or the fine prior to CCJ then you would still need to have a valid defence.

First question are you liable for the fine? If you have no defence, and it's more you would have paid if you were aware but due to selling car and moving abroad were unaware, then there is the set aside via consent. So if you can show it will have been served incorrectly, sold car, moved, informed DVLA, etc etc then a consent order that the CCJ is set aside on the basis you pay the debt is an option. It could also be handled without a hearing if all parties agreed (the parking company should be fine if it means getting paid).

This is it, right now i am challenging the legality of pcn itself on following grounds:
a) Either it wasnt delivered until after December 2019
b) Or it was an incorrect pcn (car was rarely used by wife while i was away)
I think I'm going to request evidence for PCN for starters to put a perspect on things.

It doesn't need to have been delivered before December 2019.  It's your problem that you left the country 4 months after the "offence", not theirs.

You might get somewhere with the latter but you are absolutely flushing money down the toilet by pursuing this "on principle."

A fool and his money...

JamoLew

Just wondering whether the OP could do a SAR request to the parking company to see what info relating to the OP they hold

That would be a good place to start

ThisnotThat

JamoLew said:

Just wondering whether the OP could do a SAR request to the parking company to see what info relating to the OP they hold

That would be a good place to start

The OP still has the problem that they didn't get any of the correspondence because they left the country, not because of anything the claimant did or didn't do.  It also doesn't address the reality that getting this set aside, purely on principle, is an absolute waste of money.  The costs involved will dwarf just paying the CCJ off and forgetting about it.

I'm astounded that the OP can't see this, and is going to waste considerable amounts of time and money in this rather pointless quest.  But that said, they are far from the first poster who steadfastly refuses to take a pragmatic approach to things, instead opting for the "I'm right and I'm going to prove it" approach, even if it's a complete waste of time and money.

JamoLew

Very true - I was thinking that if the info was provided and it could be shown that all communications were correct and timely then the OP may see some sense as you rightly suggest.

Most of these parking charges can be effectively defended when done properly and at the right time - it is a shame that the OP has lost this chance

ThisnotThat

JamoLew said:

Very true - I was thinking that if the info was provided and it could be shown that all communications were correct and timely then the OP may see some sense as you rightly suggest.

Most of these parking charges can be effectively defended when done properly and at the right time - it is a shame that the OP has lost this chance

Defending it would have been equally pointless.

Court action was never going to happen before the OP left the country, it just won't happen that quickly, so even if the OP had known about the impending action being taken, they'd have had to fly over to attend court at considerable expense.  I suppose the OP could have just paid it, begrudgingly, and avoided the CCJ, but their response on here seems to indicate that they'd have flushed money down the toilet defending it "on principle" rather than take a pragmatic approach to it so it seems like a moot point.

[Deleted User]

ThisnotThat said:

nic_c said:

ThisnotThat said:

taztheman said:

sourcrates said:

The court papers would go to the last known address of the debtor, the address the car was registered at.

For a set aside to be successful, you must satisfy two points.

Point one - you must have good reason why you did not respond to the court papers.
Point two - you must have a defence with a reasonable chance of success.

A defence to this would be, it was not my car, there were no signs, the ticket was incorrectly issued, etc etc, you get the idea.

Not being in receipt of the court papers alone does not constitute a defence to this.

The pcn offence date was 18/08/19. Surely the court letters wouldn't have arrived before 06/12/19 (date we vacated property) as the enforcement comoamy would have issued reminders ( which we obviously also dont remember receiving).
Also the car was sold around mid-November 2019. 
This is my only defence offcourse which can easily be proven (flight tickets,  passport entrance stamps). Also we are fairly confident that no PCN was not delivered in the three months post offence date, after which we no longer were in the UK.

If the papers were sent to your last known address, that is all that is needed.  You not living there anymore isn't really relevant, otherwise all people would need to do to avoid being taken to court is to move address.

You also need a defence against the debt itself, which you don't have yet as you don't know what it relates to.

Not necessarily as cut and dry. There have been plenty of cases where a company has issued to an old address that have been then set aside. Parking companies are notorious for using the address from DVLA they get initially and then not checking later, ignoring returned post with undelivered Royal Mail stickers on, or marked RTS, etc...

I said if they were sent to the last known address, not an old address.

None of the rest of it is particularly relevant here.  The OP left the country, and presumably, the registered keeper was not updated to some address in the Middle East.  I would imagine the car was either sold or put in storage but either way it seems highly unlikely the details were updated with a new address the OP had for correspondence.  If it had I'm sure the OP would have told us about it.  It's clear the OP just left the country and that was the end of it.  As such the parking company, not that I'm much of a fan of them, couldn't really have done much more.

If you actually read the original post, OP left in June, but his wife/kids did not follow until December (having stayed in the house they rented where presumably the car was registered on the RK form), the OP also stated later that the car was sold in mid-November and the parking ticket was issued in August. Thus there would have been a period from 18/8/19 (ticket issue) to when the family left in December when the ticket paperwork would have arrived and probably follow up notices sent to them (though after the car was sold and RK address was updated, it's possible the parking firm did actually check again and start sending them to the new address who would have ignored them or returned them unopened).

If the OP can confirm the RK address was at their rented house until November 2019 then there was a period of at least 2 months, if not 3+ (depending on whether the address was checked by the parking firm again), where the letters would have been sent to the OP's family and ignored. Even in Covid times I find it unlikely that the letters would not have arrived eventually, let alone in late 2019 before anything was really happening. Unfortunately one of these things where someone almost certainly either binned the letters, mistaking them for junk or kept them unopened with the intent to deliver them when the family reunited and it some how got mislaid.

OP seems strangely unwilling to respond to these points, just picking and choosing bits to reply to that suit their case

OP cannot prove the letter was not sent and his moving is irrelevant as the family were still there to receive the letters so it's just one of those things. As I said way earlier, if OP is coming back to the UK in the next 5 years (until November 2026) then they will have to deal with the CCJ and debt collectors. If not then there is no point trying to argue for a set aside on the CCJ

taztheman

Very interesting few posts indeed. Couple of answers to the points raised so far,
* car was sold mid November 2019
* just to reconfirm, i am fairly confident that pcn was not received in the timeframe between offence date of 18 aug 2019 and 6 Dec 2019 (date of leaving UK). I reviewed all the posts/letters received until the date of departure myself and dont recall any pcn, i take these things very seriously and any pcn received at the time, i would have paid regardless of the fault as i was set to leave UK for a few years
* why wont i just pay and settle for *settled* status. Because my job in the ME is not permanent, its a yearly contract. Given the opportunity, i wont like to leave this job at least until 2024/25 or so but i could be in the UK by year end 2021 if the company decided that they don't need me anymore. Obviously it is a worst case scenario and i always plan for the worst like most people would. If i pay, the CCJ stays on my report for 6 years. This would affect my credit score, and it is the last thing i want when my target is to put a healthy deposit down for my first house upon my return to the UK, be it 2021 or 2024. So if someone tells me it isn't going to affect my score, i will pay today and close this matter out now. 

ThisnotThat

taztheman said:

Very interesting few posts indeed. Couple of answers to the points raised so far,
* car was sold mid November 2019
* just to reconfirm, i am fairly confident that pcn was not received in the timeframe between offence date of 18 aug 2019 and 6 Dec 2019 (date of leaving UK). I reviewed all the posts/letters received until the date of departure myself and dont recall any pcn, i take these things very seriously and any pcn received at the time, i would have paid regardless of the fault as i was set to leave UK for a few years
* why wont i just pay and settle for *settled* status. Because my job in the ME is not permanent, its a yearly contract. Given the opportunity, i wont like to leave this job at least until 2024/25 or so but i could be in the UK by year end 2021 if the company decided that they don't need me anymore. Obviously it is a worst case scenario and i always plan for the worst like most people would. If i pay, the CCJ stays on my report for 6 years. This would affect my credit score, and it is the last thing i want when my target is to put a healthy deposit down for my first house upon my return to the UK, be it 2021 or 2024. So if someone tells me it isn't going to affect my score, i will pay today and close this matter out now. 

Well, any company could decide they don't want you anymore and dump you, so that's not really important.  What's more important is what you intend to do.  If you were intending to come back next year, perhaps dealing with it would be sensible.  If you're not going to be coming back until around the point that it's due to drop off I'd be looking to settle or just plain ignore it.

Bear in mind that you still need a reason for getting it set aside and I'm not convinced you have one.

taztheman

ThisnotThat said:

taztheman said:

Very interesting few posts indeed. Couple of answers to the points raised so far,
* car was sold mid November 2019
* just to reconfirm, i am fairly confident that pcn was not received in the timeframe between offence date of 18 aug 2019 and 6 Dec 2019 (date of leaving UK). I reviewed all the posts/letters received until the date of departure myself and dont recall any pcn, i take these things very seriously and any pcn received at the time, i would have paid regardless of the fault as i was set to leave UK for a few years
* why wont i just pay and settle for *settled* status. Because my job in the ME is not permanent, its a yearly contract. Given the opportunity, i wont like to leave this job at least until 2024/25 or so but i could be in the UK by year end 2021 if the company decided that they don't need me anymore. Obviously it is a worst case scenario and i always plan for the worst like most people would. If i pay, the CCJ stays on my report for 6 years. This would affect my credit score, and it is the last thing i want when my target is to put a healthy deposit down for my first house upon my return to the UK, be it 2021 or 2024. So if someone tells me it isn't going to affect my score, i will pay today and close this matter out now. 

Well, any company could decide they don't want you anymore and dump you, so that's not really important.  What's more important is what you intend to do.  If you were intending to come back next year, perhaps dealing with it would be sensible.  If you're not going to be coming back until around the point that it's due to drop off I'd be looking to settle or just plain ignore it.

Bear in mind that you still need a reason for getting it set aside and I'm not convinced you have one.

Company not wanting you translates into leaving the ME, not the same as back home in UK where you would find another job. As i said my intention is to not come back until i have saved a decent enough deposit. 
So it all boils down to how this CCJ would affect my credit score until this stays on my file.