Help Advice against CEL

noddy78

Hi All, so we have now received our court hearing date which is scheduled for late May. 

In the court correspondence it strongly suggests attempting to resolve the matter between both parties, therefore my question is do I show the court we have made every attempt to this by making a settlement offer to CEL?  Albeit much lower than the extortionate amount they are asking for? 

If so what is the likelihood of CEL accepting or are we wasting our time. In the correspondence it says CEL now have 2 weeks to pay the court fee otherwise the case will be thrown out. 

Amy guidance what to do next is appreciated. 

Coupon-mad

CEL won't accept less and you are not allowed to show the court any offers anyway.

noddy78

Ok so make no offers to settle and proceed to court. What is the most common outcome is cases like this, if CEL win are chances of the court asking us to pay the full costs they are requesting? 

Also CEL have recently started to send us letters about a separate PCN which is not part of this claim, can we ask the court to add it to the claim so that this matter can dealt with all in one go? 

Coupon-mad

Most commonly, over 99% of the time in their cases, CEL discontinue or we win at the hearing.

Once in a blue moon (about once a year) a person might lose if the Judge thinks the signs are clear. You'd obviously not pay the false added £70 because (thanks to this forum) you know chapter and verse about how to argue that it is 'extortion' that the Govt has recently banned.

Re your second question, no you can't.  But you can reply to their letter telling them about this claim number and pointing out that they've burnt their boats because they only get one opportunity to bring their entire case to court and given they missed a PCN off this claim, they can't start filing 'duplicate facts' new claims.  That would be an abuse of process and barred by the courts under cause of action estoppel

KeithP

@IloveElephants, please ask questions about your predicaments on one of your threads.

Are you really sorry to have hijacked yet another thread?

IloveElephants

KeithP said:

@IloveElephants, please ask questions about your predicaments on one of your threads.

Are you really sorry to have hijacked yet another thread?

Hi Keith, I will delete my post and paste it on my existing thread. Sorry to everyone, 

noddy78

Thanks @Coupon-mad for your excellent guidance.  So CEL were due to pay to the court fee for our case to proceed by last week, I assume they have done this but is there a way I can check? 

Another twist to this is that last week we received a letter from DCBL asking for payment in settlement of a CCJ obtained by CEL back in March 2020. This is the first we have heard of this CCJ as obviously if we had received previous correspondence we would not have ignored it.  They have quoted a claim ref which I assume is legitimate but what is the best way to find the full details of this case and how they obtained a CCJ without our knowledge. It seems strange they are only now chasing for payment 2 years later. 

Coupon-mad

Re the fee, ring the local court and ask.

Re the CCJ, ring the CCBC and ask where the claim was sent (probably your old address because CEL are the very worst PPC for doing that) and what the Particulars of Claim said - word for word - exactly.

If they issued two claims for PCNs about the same sort of facts, where those PCNs were all in play in 2020, then they should have brought the entire case (all outstanding PCNs) then, in 2020, as one claim, not as a form of torture of several claims.

And they had a duty to check your address first (costs just 29 pence for a bulk soft trace) and on past form, they won't have bothered.

Read the thread by @Jack5656 for a recent worked example. Copy it.  You can set aside that CCJ and probably get the court fee back, ordered against CEL due to what is usually unreasonable conduct.

noddy78

So after originally being told by the court that the claimant had not paid the court fee to proceed we have now been told they they actually have. 

My partner who's name this claim is in will now find it very difficult to get the time off work for the hearing, on the notice of allocation it states that if you are unable to attend you should advise the court at least 7 days before the hearing and file all your documentation. But my first question is would this be frowned upon or go against us in any way to not attend the hearing in person. 

Secondly it states that you must deliver to every other party and to the court office no later than 14 days before the final hearing copies of all documentation you will to file as evidence. This gives us very little time to do this. Should this include our written witness statement?   And I assume the claimant has to do the same because as yet we have received nothing from them. 

Other than filing a witness statement and any other documented evidence is there anything else we need to file to the court. 

Re; the CCJ so it turns out this is officially on the register and is under our old address which we moved from in 2018.  All of these PCN's were dated from 2019 and they brought the CCJ against a single PCN in March 2020 whilst chasing us separately for the others. 

Coupon-mad

Yes, she'll lose if she doesn't attend because it hands the floor to the Claimant's legal rep to say whatever they like.

DO NOT EVEN TRY TO AVOID THE HEARING ENTIRELY. It can even cause added costs, if the legal rep talks the Judge into allowing his/her fee (hundreds).

The Judge wants to hear from the Defendant and it is very important her voice is heard.

Hopefully it's a remote hearing or if not she should email asking for it to please be changed to a phone hearing so she can join without taking time off work, which is proving difficult because she is a ....(explain).

Do that email right now, TODAY.

Best recent example of a WS is by @wobs2k

Re the CCJ:

Over the weekend, read the thread by @Jack5656 and don't delay the N244 application to set that one aside. Sounds like the PPC had your correct address all along in 2019 and failed to change all records relating to you/that car to show the newer address.  Easy set aside decision for any canny Judge, and you should get the £275 back from the C.