Letter of claim over historic parking charge

D_P_Dance

I don't see any value in that. I used to work on a team dealing exclusively with MP enquiries and complaints for a govenrment body and saw first hand how much weight MP's complaints generally carry (ie, not a lot)

So did I.  In the Foreign Office we took MP's complaints very seriously,  

Fruitcake

KennyMc157 said:

D_P_Dance said:

Have you complained to your MP?

I don't see any value in that. I used to work on a team dealing exclusively with MP enquiries and complaints for a govenrment body and saw first hand how much weight MP's complaints generally carry (ie, not a lot)

It's complaints to MPs and their support that resulted in Sir Gregg Knight getting his private member's Parking Bill through parliament in 2019.

I guarantee that if you don't complain, nothing will happen. Many posters have reported that their MPs have passed their complaints and comments to Sir Gregg and to Robert Jenrick who is in charge of the MHCLG consultation on the parking bill code of practice.

This is the GSV tutorial I wrote that MothballsWallet mentioned.

Google Street View (GSV) Tutorial — MoneySavingExpert Forum

KeithP

D_P_Dance said:

 In the Foreign Office we took MP's complaints very seriously,  

Hardly surprising, but apparently things have gone down hill since you retired...

Foreign Office ignored frantic pleas:

Thousands of emails to the Foreign Office from MPs and charities detailing urgent cases of Afghans trying to escape from Kabul have not been read, including cases flagged by government ministers...
. . .
...an official email address used to collate potential Afghan cases from MPs and others regularly contained 5,000 unread emails throughout the week.
. . .
An email from the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sent on Monday was still unread on Thursday. There also appeared to be unread messages from the offices of Victoria Atkins, the newly appointed minister for Afghan resettlement, the home secretary, Priti Patel, and the Tory chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood.

But I digress. 

D_P_Dance

Yes, I read that.  Like all Government deartments, the FCO has been pared to the bone.  Staff have been cut, embassies closed, and workloads increased.  You cannot get blood out of a stone.  

KennyMc157

.Ok. I've received the claim form from the County Court today. I will leave it until the weekend to do the AOS (as advised). I am interested in what I should be putting in my defence though, which I am looking to prepare. There are no images on Google Maps from the time of the "offence" (21/11/16). The time stamps are from 2008, then nothing until 2019. The thing about this is I am guilty - I did knowingly park in defiance of the signage - taking the chance that I would be ok for twenty minutes (which turned into 45 minutes in the end) so what is my defence? Are these processes purely for those who feel genuinely aggrieved at the poor conduct of these people. My gripe is the extortionate charge (£100.00) If it would have been reasonable (£30/£40) i would probably have took the hit and put it down to experience. The £100.00 has now escalated to £283.06, which is worrying - have I got a fight here, or should I be looking to ask for time to pay? Looking at the vaious examples I don't see how my case fits. I am happy for any help and advice to wrangle out of this, but honestly don't know if it is worth fighting.

KeithP

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

KennyMc157

23rd September 2021

KeithP

KeithP said:

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

KennyMc157 said:

23rd September 2021

With a Claim Issue Date of 23rd September, you have until Tuesday 12th October to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an AoS, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an AoS in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 26th October 2021 to file your Defence.

That's four 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 again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service instructions.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

KennyMc157

Just formulating my defence and I've noticed that on every piece of correspondence they have sent me, they have mis-spelt my name. Straw clutching here - but I don't suppose this is grounds for the thing to be thrown out is it?

KeithP

KennyMc157 said:

Just formulating my defence and I've noticed that on every piece of correspondence they have sent me, they have mis-spelt my name. Straw clutching here - but I don't suppose this is grounds for the thing to be thrown out is it?

No, but you might want to check that your name is spelt correctly on your vehicle's Registration Document(V5c).