Dcbl letter before claim stage

Coupon-mad

A good example of the fact that the law is what the parties take to and say at the hearing!  A Judge won't pluck law from thin air. Case authorities can be vital - Judges are fair and canny in my experience but often need to be shown the more niche stuff.

Remember that Judges are often part time and their main job is as local solicitors (generalist lawyers) who might mainly deal with family, probate or property law.  Thus, they may well not have read up on 'cause of action estoppel' for years, but they will listen.

Cp100

Update:

they decided to do another hearing 30th September. 

The claimant said they wernt filed together because the other two pcns were a different car/reg although in the same car park.

I am not very confident in winning this now as I’m sure the judge will just say I’ve repeatedly parked there and ignored everything each time. So I either go for settlement or ride it out. 

5 pcns in total over a year or so in the same car park

Coupon-mad

So gen up and write a crib sheet on what you want to say.

If it goes pear shaped during the hearing and the Judge seems satisfied with the signage, you need to be able to argue why the Claimant cannot add several hundred pounds in false 'debt recovery fees' that they never paid, and will never pay, for failed chase up letters that are part of the model of a parking charge regime anyway...the minor automated cost of which are more than covered by the £100. That's why it's £100.

Cp100

Coupon-mad said:

So gen up and write a crib sheet on what you want to say.

If it goes pear shaped during the hearing and the Judge seems satisfied with the signage, you need to be able to argue why the Claimant cannot add several hundred pounds in false 'debt recovery fees' that they never paid, and will never pay, for failed chase up letters that are part of the model of a parking charge regime anyway...the minor automated cost of which are more than covered by the £100. That's why it's £100.

They will not settle at £600 for the 5 pcns now as more costs have been incurred by them so the new figure is £715 for the 5 pcns. 

So either I make a decision to bite the bullet and pay that, or take a chance and see what happens after the next hearing. If I do lose though my costs id imagine to be a lot more than £715 with court fees etc added on. 

Not too sure what to do now as I don’t have a great feeling that I would win. 

Le_Kirk

Do you have a breakdown for the £715.  The court fees should already be shown on the claim form and it is for the WHOLE claim they cannot add fees per PCN.

Cp100

Le_Kirk said:

Do you have a breakdown for the £715.  The court fees should already be shown on the claim form and it is for the WHOLE claim they cannot add fees per PCN.

I do not have a breakdown but on the original claim forms they were trying to get £800 odd inc fees for 3 pcns and then £500 ish for 2 pcns including fees. 

I’m not sure if I lose what the court would likely make me pay per pcn and then court fees on top. If I knew that then I can come to a conclusion on if it’s worth just riding it out. 

I’m mainly worried about now the claims are together the court just saying well you’ve racked up five pcns in the same car park over the time period of a year or so. And say I clearly didn’t have any regard for the parking charges or car park as it was all in the same car park. My only thing I can say is it says for customers of house of fisher, which I believe is a letting company. So I could say how did they know I was not in house of fisher at the time- although they probably supply you with a permit etc etc so I doubt that would help me. 

Fruitcake

If you lose it would be £100 per PCN, plus court filing fee of around £25, plus capped solicitor's costs of around £50, plus the hearing fee of around £25, although I think those charges may have gone up this year.
Around £600 - £650 assuming the judge throws out any fake add on debt/admin charges, which is less than the current "settlement" fee of £715.
By my reckoning, going to court and losing will be cheaper than paying now.

Of course if you win, it will cost you nothing and you may be able to claim costs of up to £95.

Coupon-mad

For 5 PCNs it would be waaay less than £715 even if you lost, as long as you know how to use what your defence said about the 'extortion' of the added £70 per PCN.

I've no idea why you think it could be more?

Cp100

So it’s less than 48 hours until the ajourned hearing now and I haven’t received the witness bundle from the claimant. 

Although they provided it last time this wasn’t for all of the pcns because the last case didn’t include both claims, only one. I’m guessing they are required to provide a new one which covers all pcns across both claims?  

Where do I stand now? Is this good news for me? Could it all be struck out because of this? Or maybe they will not be able to claim for the pcns that are not included in the last witness bundle they supplied? 

Should I notify the court today or tomorrow that I haven’t received it or just not say anything until the actual hearing?

Thanks in advance 

Coupon-mad

As soon as you've got past the introductions at the hearing, state that there is a preliminary matter about the Claimant's bundle, that you wish to raise which may be fatal to some of the parking charges that are the subject of this hearing.

The Judge should let you speak to point this out because it immediately narrows the issues to be determined.