Received a Claim Form for an ANPR "fine" for £260.00, and don't think there's much of a defense?

KeithP

KeithP said:

Please tell us the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form.

mylampisonthetable said:

3rd December, currently nothing has been done about it. I think I have until the 22nd to acknowledge it at least.

With a Claim Issue Date of 3rd December, you do indeed have until Wednesday 22nd December 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 Wednesday 5th January 2022 to file your Defence.

That's three 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'.

Snakes_Belly

Whilst the new CoP is not retrospective it could have influence. It would be worth a mention with regard to the amount of the claim.  

Coupon-mad

So, hopefully your mind is at rest, that people who lose pay LESS than the claim, this is why it's a no brainer!  This is already stated in the NEWBIES thread 2nd post,

mylampisonthetable

What do you tink of this next course of action? On balance, it might be best to make an offer to BW Legal to pay £100 as a full and final settlement. The reason for this is that I have determined that penalty-like charges for parking appear to be permitted by courts, and since I feel I would likely lose I would have to pay that anyway plus some small fees. If BW Legal refuse, I can include that in my defense - that BW Legal are not accepting fair offers and continuing to press in the courts.

How does that sound?

Umkomaas

mylampisonthetable said:

What do you tink of this next course of action? On balance, it might be best to make an offer to BW Legal to pay £100 as a full and final settlement. The reason for this is that I have determined that penalty-like charges for parking appear to be permitted by courts, and since I feel I would likely lose I would have to pay that anyway plus some small fees. If BW Legal refuse, I can include that in my defense - that BW Legal are not accepting fair offers and continuing to press in the courts.

How does that sound?

You're wasting your time. They will want the full pound of your flesh. 

If BW Legal refuse, I can include that in my defense - that BW Legal are not accepting fair offers and continuing to press in the courts.

You will have made a tantamount admission that you accept you owe the parking company. 

If you make the offer a 'Without Prejudice, Save as to Costs' one, the court won't know the offer has been made, therefore no 'admission'. But you can't tell the court about that offer until judgment has been made at which stage the Judge will be assessing costs.  You won't be able to tell the Judge what you seem to want to, so it will have no impact on his/her decision. 

'Making offers' is not a straightforward process. 

95Rollers

Coupon-mad said:

So, hopefully your mind is at rest, that people who lose pay LESS than the claim, this is why it's a no brainer!  This is already stated in the NEWBIES thread 2nd post,

THIS!  Plus even you did lose - the PPC would probably actually lose more money than the amount of money you would be ordered to pay. £50 of what you'd likely pay would be the court fee so it would be go back to the court, then the another £100-150 back to the parking company - the vast majority of that would go to paying their legal company for a Court Rep and pre-court paperwork so its likely the parking company will walk away owing money to their legal debt firm.

Whereas if you rolled over at the first hurdles and paid then both these companies would take a massive profit generated from nothing whereas a loss in court would see the PPC with nothing to being in the minus and the Debt/Legal firm with a small amount (double figures). Not to mention all the time they've wasted processing claims, paperwork, copy & pasting and dealing with SARs etc so make them work for it if they want it that badly and they aren't guarenteed to win which they know!  They often send out settlement offers which is to mitigate their risk of a spanking in court and protecting their margins! They'll usually try and levy this money out of people with more threats and almost blackmail!

Coupon-mad

On balance, it might be best to make an offer to BW Legal to pay £100 as a full and final settlement.

Nope.  It would not and would be pointless.  We win 99% of cases here.

D_P_Dance

Why do you wasnt to pay £100 to a scammer.

Snakes_Belly

"On balance, it might be best to make an offer to BW Legal to pay £100 as a full and final settlement."

I agree with the other posters. BW will be after the full amount.  I also agree that it is tantamount to admission to make an offer. If it was me I would take my chance in the DJ lottery.

You will get the chance to mediate at a later stage although it is a total waste of time and more suited to insurance claims. 

mylampisonthetable

OK I think I'm going to make a defense. It's the princple of the thing. I was astonished by the ruling of District Judge Jackson (Bradford) which I read in a PDF somewhere (juicy final paragraphs below).

What's my next step? ...To create a defense document (I'm doing that now)? How can I make it so they lose even if they win?

District Judge Jackson (Bradford): “Is it however the proper option in this case given that strike out should be the last option? In my judgement it is. Having regard to the overriding objective and in particular the need to deal with cases justly and at proportionate cost and the need for a sanction to be proportionate in my judgement the case should be struck out. Simply disallowing the £60 claim or disallowing the Claimant’s costs is not sufficient to show the court’s disapproval of the abuse of its process. The Claimant must be shown that including irrecoverable heads of loss in its claims has consequences otherwise I have no doubt they will continue to claim £60 damages/costs etc to profit from undefended cases.

“Having regard to all elements of the overriding objective and the need for a sanction to be proportionate I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown. The claim is therefore struck out.” (2nd July 2020).