UKPC PCN County Court Claim - Urgent Defence Statement Help Needed

Jolly_Brother

D_P_Dance said:

Have you complained to your MP?

Not yet, but planning on doing so. I also plan to join the class action in respect of the DVLA handing over my details. 

Jolly_Brother

KeithP said:

I have a County Court Claim which was sent on the 16/08/2021, and therefore the service date being the 21/08/2021.  I have calculated that the 28th day is 17/09/2021 to file a defence statement - does anyone know the exact cutoff?  Would it be 23:59 on the 17/09/2021?  

You have more time than you think, but only if you filed an Acknowledgment of Service sometime between 21st August and 6th September. Did you do that? Please confirm.

21st August plus 28 days = 18th September.

A Defence filing deadline is never on a weekend - you are allowed until 4pm on the next working day.

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th August, and assuming an Acknowledgment of Service was filed in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 20th September 2021 to file your Defence.

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.

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'.

From this point forward, other than keeping on eye on updates, will I do anything on MCOL? 

Redx

The details are on the claim forms , but actual dates are not , other than the issue date , from which we calculate if it plus 33 days , or less ( but never falling on a Saturday or Sunday or a bank holiday , meaning it rolls over , possibly to 35 or 36 days at most

If you read your claim form closely you will see that service date is 5 days after the issue date , 14 days is standard from the service date , plus another 14 days if it's all done correctly , so 5 + 14 + 14 = 33 days from the issue date , with various caveats as explained above. We tend to ask for issue date and AOS date to work out the deadline date for submission , subject to people not rushing in and spoiling it

Further guidance is in any advice booklet that comes with the Letter , plus on the MCOL website

So if you read all the guidance notes , then do the maths , you get the correct answer , which we work out daily on here for newbies , most don't care about the maths , just the due date

KeithP

Jolly_Brother said:

KeithP said:

Jolly_Brother said:

I completed the acknowledgement of service on the 21st August.  The 33rd day from date of the claim letter would put the 28th day as the 17th Sept, as August has 31 days.  

OK, AoS done on a Saturday, five days after the Issue Date.

Therefore the AoS was accepted on the Monday - clearly within the dates I mentioned earlier.

There are two ways of calculating the Defence filing deadline in this instance, but both give the same answer.

1) We know that a Claim is deemed served five days after issue, therefore the date of Service of the Claim could be seen at Saturday 21st August. But as nothing is deemed served on a Saturday (or Sunday or Bank Holiday), the Date of Service becomes Monday 23rd August. Twenty eight days, i.e. four complete weeks, from that Date of Service will also be a Monday - 20th September.

2) Alternatively, as the AoS was filed in a timely manner, we can just add thirty three days to the Issue Date of 16th August. That again gives us a date of Saturday 18th September. As before, if a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday, one is allowed until 4pm on the next working day to file a Defence.

Ah ok, thanks. I don’t recall reading this on any of the claim forms…do they just expect the average person to know this?

The back of your County Court Claim Form tells you:

It goes on to say:

This is confirmed in the Money Claim Online (MCOL) - User Guide, which also explains that a Defence is never due on a non-working day.

On page 14 of that document it says:

How long does the defendant have to respond to my claim?

The court will send out a claim pack to each defendant once the claim has been issued and allows 5 calendar days from the date of issue for the service of the claim. Therefore the 'date of service' is the 5th calendar day after issue.

The defendant has 14 calendar days from the 'date of service' to file a response. If the last day for filing the response falls on a day that the court is not open (i.e. a weekend or public holiday), the court will allow the next full working day for a response. The defendant can extend the time to respond to 28 calendar days by filing an acknowledgment of service (AOS).

KeithP

Jolly_Brother said:

KeithP said:

I have a County Court Claim which was sent on the 16/08/2021, and therefore the service date being the 21/08/2021.  I have calculated that the 28th day is 17/09/2021 to file a defence statement - does anyone know the exact cutoff?  Would it be 23:59 on the 17/09/2021?  

You have more time than you think, but only if you filed an Acknowledgment of Service sometime between 21st August and 6th September. Did you do that? Please confirm.

21st August plus 28 days = 18th September.

A Defence filing deadline is never on a weekend - you are allowed until 4pm on the next working day.

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th August, and assuming an Acknowledgment of Service was filed in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 20th September 2021 to file your Defence.

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.

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'.

From this point forward, other than keeping on eye on updates, will I do anything on MCOL? 

The last sentence in my post you have quoted should answer that.  

Here it is again...

Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

Le_Kirk

Jolly_Brother said:

KeithP said:

I have a County Court Claim which was sent on the 16/08/2021, and therefore the service date being the 21/08/2021.  I have calculated that the 28th day is 17/09/2021 to file a defence statement - does anyone know the exact cutoff?  Would it be 23:59 on the 17/09/2021?  

You have more time than you think, but only if you filed an Acknowledgment of Service sometime between 21st August and 6th Se......................

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'.

From this point forward, other than keeping on eye on updates, will I do anything on MCOL? 

You are right, nothing at all on MCOL - treat is as READ only as advised by @KeithP