DCBL Letter of Claim after 5 1/2 years

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

Sazzy61

Redx said:

In practice the alleged debt will die due to the limitations act 1980 , but the advice has always been that for England and Wales the alleged debt is not written off by the statute , but cannot be enforced in law due to the statute

I believe that in Scotland it may all die at 5 years , but that's a different law , afaik

Either way , the op should check these opinions , but can safely assume that the claimant will let it die because they cannot enforce it after 6 years , in England and Wales

We're curently at the 5 year 3 month point; the 6 year anniversary will fall on April 20th, 2022.  I thought that probably would explain the renewed urgency after so long; they want to beat the deadline.
So, I received a 'Letter of Claim' dated July 6th, and then today, July 9th I have received at 'Final Notice of Debt Recovery'. I'm really confused though, because the first of these letters is from DCBL Legal, a green letterhead which says 'Civil and Commercial Litigation Solicitors', and is for £160.
The 2nd letter is from DCBL, a blue letterhead which says 'Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd', and is for £170.

Is this a deliberate attempt to confuse me or is it an escalation of things?  The first letter gives me 30 days, and the 2nd letter (3 days later) is recommending legal action straight away. So what happened to the 30 days?

Umkomaas

Sazzy61 said:

Redx said:

In practice the alleged debt will die due to the limitations act 1980 , but the advice has always been that for England and Wales the alleged debt is not written off by the statute , but cannot be enforced in law due to the statute

I believe that in Scotland it may all die at 5 years , but that's a different law , afaik

Either way , the op should check these opinions , but can safely assume that the claimant will let it die because they cannot enforce it after 6 years , in England and Wales

We're curently at the 5 year 3 month point; the 6 year anniversary will fall on April 20th, 2022.  I thought that probably would explain the renewed urgency after so long; they want to beat the deadline.
So, I received a 'Letter of Claim' dated July 6th, and then today, July 9th I have received at 'Final Notice of Debt Recovery'. I'm really confused though, because the first of these letters is from DCBL Legal, a green letterhead which says 'Civil and Commercial Litigation Solicitors', and is for £160.
The 2nd letter is from DCBL, a blue letterhead which says 'Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd', and is for £170.

Is this a deliberate attempt to confuse me or is it an escalation of things?  The first letter gives me 30 days, and the 2nd letter (3 days later) is recommending legal action straight away. So what happened to the 30 days?

Are you sure the letters relate to the same parking charge - check carefully and compare the reference numbers and dates of the parking events shown on each. 

Sazzy61

Are you sure the letters relate to the same parking charge - check carefully and compare the reference numbers and dates of the parking events shown on each. 

The second letter (today) doesn't contain any reference to dates or details of events, and the reference numbers are in a different format.... but there is an overlap in digits. The first 4 digits from letter 2 also appear as the last 4 digits in letter 1.
So from that I would say that these are the same claim. But for different amounts and from (presumbly) different departments within the same company. Differenty phone numbers too, but within one digit of one another.

Coupon-mad

Is the client in the headings, the same parking firm? 

I’d take a photo of both letters and when you email DCBLegal, ask them to tell you exactly how many PCNs they and their ‘collections’ arm are holding data for, and remind them that if these are all the same client you want them all set out and broken down clearly, with notes beside each as to whether their client believes they are POFA or non-POFA.

Also remind them that their client must bring these as one claim, not a drip-drip form of intimidation using the court as a vehicle of threat of duplicative claims (Henderson v Henderson being the authority on this).

Sazzy61

Coupon-mad said:

Is the client in the headings, the same parking firm? 

One letter (the green one) refers to Excel Parking, but the other one doesn't. Note the difference in the letterhead designs and strap lines, and also the difference in amounts. Also note the dates are only 3 days apart.
I had an almost exact copy of the blue letter last August, but the back was different. Today's letter has details of payments methods and account details on the back. The one from last August had some debt advice information on the back, and said 'This case is not subject to High Court or Bailiff action'.

That's partly why I ignored it for so long.

Coupon-mad

Different PCNs so do as I suggested above. 

Also, may have told you this already but it is vitally important! 

Please do us and yourself (and the driving public) a favour and stick around on this forum every week - at least for the Summer - to ensure you see when the Government publish and open the final Technical Consultation.

We will be talking about it and the public will have about 4 weeks we think, to tell the MHCLG what you think about the level of parking charges.

change is coming.

Redx

Green one , dcb legal ( not dcb ltd) , letter before claim , LBC or LoC

Blue one dcb ltd ( not legal ) , debt collector letter

As mentioned above , fin out how many in total are they pursuing , with full details and PCN numbers

Sazzy61

I think I've got this a bit wrong! It looks like different PCNs; one from Excel in 2016 and the other from Parking Eye in 2019. The parking eye one I felt was genuinely unfair because the car park changed from free to robot controlled and with cameras during the interval between my two visits; in January it was free, and in March suddenly it wasn't!
But I didn't have to drive through a closed barrier to get in, so I wasn't even aware of the change. I was last there a few days ago, and noticed that the sign on the wall where I always park is very small and obscured by a tree with a thick trunk. I couldn't see it.

Coupon-mad

We told you these were different PCNs but you don’t need to worry about the ParkingEye one because if they were going to sue, they would have, because they have in-house litigation staff.

Not that this makes their PCN and intimidation by letter any better than the Excel one. Horrific extortion of the public.

Please do us and yourself (and the driving public) a favour and stick around on this forum every week - at least for the Summer - to ensure you see when the Government publish and open the final Technical Consultation.

As I already mentioned in my earlier reply, we will be talking about it and the public will have about 4 weeks we think, to tell the MHCLG what you think about the level of parking charges, that the MHCLG has admirably decided already will start at £50 (50% discount) and not £100.

It's not open yet but please keep check here to see when it is.  We need real people like you to counter the spamming that happened last time from the industry.