Overstayed Parking

B789

Well done. Did you submit the defence as advised? DCB Legal's "decision-making team" appear to be intellectually challenged in most claims we see here.

DCB Legal depend on the vast number of victims who have not visited this forum to either poop their pants as soon as they see an N1 claim form or else ignore it completely or just file such a poor defence that they either get a judgement by default or the victim just pays up.

Stinge

Yes.  I did use the advice on here to submit the defence.  I didn't even think I added much myself on top of that, but it worked anyway.

It was all very easy and would advise anyone not to be bullied into paying.

Thanks again.

B789

Stinge said:

Yes.  I did use the advice on here to submit the defence.  I didn't even think I added much myself on top of that, but it worked anyway.

It was all very easy and would advise anyone not to be bullied into paying.

Thanks again.

Another one for @patient_dream to put on their DCB Legal wall of shame.

Coupon-mad

B789 said:

Stinge said:

Yes.  I did use the advice on here to submit the defence.  I didn't even think I added much myself on top of that, but it worked anyway.

It was all very easy and would advise anyone not to be bullied into paying.

Thanks again.

Another one for @patient_dream to put on their DCB Legal wall of shame.

It's  @Umkomaas' thread!

Anyway, very good news! Well done @Stinge.

Discontinuance = win.

ANOTHER CP PLUS ONE BITES THE DUST!

One favour please, as mentioned before.

We need you - as a genuine PPC victim of aggression, sharp practice and an 'extortion' attempt to add £70 - to respond robustly to the Public Consultation on the level of parking charges and banning of the false added DRA 'fee' that too many honest motorists currently fall victim to.

It will need consumer input (powerful voices) but change is afoot. It's taken about 5 years to get to this stage:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6333036/breaking-news-government-has-announced-the-statutory-code-of-practice-and-enforcement-framework/p1

And then the industry threw victims' money at it and blocked and delayed it - explained here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79310609/#Comment_79310609

You have a personal story to tell about the culture of greed that inflates parking charges to line the pockets of roboclaim bullyboy 'legal' firms, and incentivises court as a cheaper form of debt collection than the PPC making proper efforts to engage with the consumer,

I am sure you want your voice heard to stop this happening again.

Stinge

I certainly will.  Thanks for all the great work for so many.

B789

Coupon-mad said:

It's  @Umkomaas' thread!

My bad... again. The naughty step is getting very worn out! 

Taiko

B789 said:

Coupon-mad said:

It's  @Umkomaas' thread!

My bad... again. The naughty step is getting very worn out! 

You've been hanging around DCBL so much, you appear to have gained via osmosis their inability to misinterpret the evidence in front of them! 

Stinge

Closing the loop on this one in case it helps anyone who finds the thread later.

The short version

Parking event 27 July 2020 at a Metro Bank site in Luton. Smart Parking, later DCB Legal. Claim issued 27 October 2025, defence filed 30 October 2025. Allocated to the small claims track on 2 April 2026, hearing listed for 27 August 2026 at Bedford, one hour, £330.48 claimed.

On 7 August 2026 DCB emailed offering to settle at £60. I did not take it.

I phoned the court to check if DBC had paid the court fee. It appears they hadn't, the above offer was made knowing this.

On 10 August 2026 I served my witness statement and a 52 page indexed and paginated exhibit bundle on the court and on DCB (I had served it late, DBC had not served at all at this stage), and separately sent a without prejudice save as to costs letter offering a drop hands: they discontinue, each side bears its own costs, no payment either way.

At 07:49 the next morning they accepted. At 07:50 they served the N279 Notice of Discontinuance and confirmed it had been filed at court. Nineteen hours.

To be straight about it: no judge decided anything, so nothing below has been tested. They folded, and I cannot tell you which part did it.

It was really easy with the help of this forum and AI. I just uploaded all the documents and pointed AI at this forum. It does all need to be checked though. My AI made all the documents perfectly and put them in my email drafts ready to be sent.

I WOULD THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT PAYING THESE BULLIES ANYTHING, REGARDLESS OF HOW WEAK YOU THINK YOUR CASE IS. IT IS REALLY EASY TO FIGHT THEM, AND ITS GETTING EASIER BY THE DAY. I HAVE DONE IT TWICE.

What I think actually mattered

1. The subject access request, five years ago. In July 2021 I sent a SAR to Smart Parking. Their data protection officer sent me the entire case file: the Notice to Keeper, the ANPR entry and exit images, the number plate report, the ticket records, the DVLA request, and a photograph of the terms and conditions sign. That file was the case. Everything I ran was built out of their own documents. If you do nothing else, do the SAR, do it early, and keep the email forever.

2. Read the Notice to Keeper against POFA Schedule 4 paragraph 9(2), line by line. Mine did not contain the warning required by paragraph 9(2)(f), which is the one that actually tells the keeper they may become liable. It also did not contain the statement required by 9(2)(e). Without those, keeper liability never arises at all, and if they have not proved who was driving the claim has nowhere to go. Also check the timing: 9(5) gives 14 days beginning the day after the parking period ended, and 9(6) deems service on the second working day after posting. Work out the arithmetic on every date that appears anywhere in their file, not just the one on the front of the notice, and be honest with yourself if one of those dates would have been in time.

3. Google Street View history for dated signage evidence. This was the best free evidence I found. The site entrance sign said MAXIMUM STAY 45 MINUTES in the September 2020 capture and still said 45 minutes in May 2022. By August 2024 the same sign said 15 MINUTES. Open Street View, click the clock icon, step back through the captures, screenshot each one with the date visible. It is dated, independent, and free.

4. Check whether the claimant actually paid the trial fee. My notice of allocation carried an unless order: unless the claimant paid the £27 trial fee by 4pm on a stated date, the claim would be struck out with effect from that date without further order. Ring the court and ask what the record shows. Ask it as a factual question about the record and say up front that you are not asking for advice, or you will get the "we cannot advise" reflex. In my case they could not confirm it either way, but it is a free question and if the answer is no, the claim is already dead.

5. The drop hands offer is what closed it. Not the £60, not a counter offer with money in it. Offering them a way out where nobody pays anybody is easy for a case handler to sign off. Mark it WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO COSTS, send it as a separate email with no attachments so it can never end up in the open bundle, and give it a short deadline. Send it at the same time as the evidence, not before, so they read it with the witness statement in front of them.

6. Serve properly. Witness statement plus a bundle that is indexed, paginated, and cross referenced, with their documents in it, not just yours. Mine ran to 52 pages, all created automatically with very little input from me. I also have to own a mistake: I missed the paragraph 6 deadline for exchanging documents by about seven weeks, and had to apologise to the court and ask to rely on them under paragraph 8. Do not do that. It came right in the end only because the claimant had served nothing at all.

Two warnings worth more than any of the above

Orton v Barclays has been overturned. A lot of witness statements circulating at the moment cite the county court decision in Orton v Barclays Bank UK plc as authority for getting costs under CPR 27.14(2)(g). The Court of Appeal overturned it on 3 August 2026, [2026] EWCA Civ 1025. Cockerill LJ held that the unreasonable behaviour exception must not be construed widely, that analogies with the Denton test may not be helpful, and that judges should bear in mind the undesirability of deterring people from using the small claims track. It is now authority against a defendant seeking costs, not for. If your draft cites the old decision, take it out before a judge does it for you. I cited the Court of Appeal decision against myself in my own statement, which I would rather do than be corrected on it in the room.

While on costs: CPR 38.6(3) switches off the usual rule that a discontinuing claimant pays your costs where the claim has been allocated to the small claims track. So do not expect costs just because they discontinue. Your only route is 27.14(2)(g), which Orton has now made harder. I gave up my costs claim as the price of the drop hands and I think that was the right trade.

If you use AI to help, check every single authority yourself. I did use an AI assistant to prepare the statement and bundle, and it was useful for the arithmetic and the drafting. It also initially cited the county court Orton decision without spotting that the Court of Appeal had overturned it eleven days earlier. That would have gone into a signed witness statement if I had not gone back and checked. Verify every case, every citation and every rule number on a free source such as the National Archives Find Case Law or legislation.gov.uk before it goes anywhere near the court.

One useful exhibit if your case involves added debt recovery fees: the CMA open letter to private parking operators of 16 July 2026. Worth a tab.

Where it leaves me. Discontinuance ends the claim on service under CPR 38.5. No judgment, so no CCJ and nothing on my credit file. And because I had filed a defence, CPR 38.7 means they need the court's permission to bring another claim on the same facts, which combined with six years having run from the 2020 event makes it about as final as these things get.

Thanks to everyone on here whose posts I read while working this out. I would not have known where to start otherwise.

Car1980

Thanks. A shame about Orton.

Coupon-mad

"served the N279 Notice of Discontinuance and confirmed it had been filed at court".

Marvellous!

You won, as expected. Congrats!

However we need a pic of the attached NoD please, otherwise @Umkomaas can't count your success in his thread of evidence…

😀