County Court Claim Form received (UKPC / DCB Legal)

The_Loner

It will be recorded that the defendant has contacted the court, the defendant can ask the question whether the claimant’s solicitor actually filed a notice. 

The_Loner

I would still phone the court and get confirmation whether they did or not, courts can make mistakes.

Coupon-mad

Won't do any harm but the OP needs to know what to do before they go away.

The_Loner

The OP contacting the court will put a marker down, something has gone wrong here, I’m very intrigued to find out what has actually happened.

The OP was under the impression the claim was discontinued, this thread is evidence of that, the court should hopefully give some directions on the way forward, probably an application to set aside the judgment?

Going forward,  anyone who gets notified of a claim being discontinued, please confirm with your local court ASAP.



Nothing to do with this claim, but I have seen an N24 today (DCBL) where the claim was struck out due to the claimant’s POC not complying with CPR 16.4.

The claimant have been ordered to submit new POC, I have a copy of the full order if anyone is interested?

Coupon-mad

Yes please.

The_Loner

Hopefully this works not the best at this being an OAP

Coupon-mad

Ah yes, seen some of those before. Sadly they will just churn out a template letter ticking the boxes.

Johnersh

If it were me, I'd go all-in and inform the judge that the court was misled by their advocate, since C served a notice of discontinuance.

The firm knew that it was not entitled to the order sought and/or why D had not intended, but requested judgment anyway. They'd  need to explain to me how their advocate had instructions to seek an order for judgment when previously their client had instructed them to discontinue. 

The declaration on the discontinuance is that it has been filed at court and served on every party. So the service upon D should have occurred at the same time as or after filing.  There are serious professional conduct issues arising here.

C needs to request judgment is set aside and to enter judgment in Ds favour. 

I'd give them 7 days to do that, absent which I'd be making or an SRA regulatory complaint and an application to set aside whilst seeking costs for unreasonable behaviour.

But I can be aggressive like that. 

bargepole

Coupon-mad said:

But we know they didn't.

Can't have done otherwise the hearing would not have proceeded.

The only clarification we need is what does this OP do about it?  Hence asking for @Johnersh or @bargepole to kindly take a look at what's happened and suggest what the OP must do, before they go away.

Coupon-mad said:

But we know they didn't.

Can't have done otherwise the hearing would not have proceeded.

The only clarification we need is what does this OP do about it?  Hence asking for @Johnersh or @bargepole to kindly take a look at what's happened and suggest what the OP must do, before they go away.

I would suggest filing an N244 application, without notice, requesting that the Judgment be set aside, owing to the fact that the Claimant discontinued the claim, and therefore the Court should never have listed a hearing.

The application should also ask for the £108 fee for the application to be payable by the Claimant, who should not have proceeded with the hearing when they knew the claim was discontinued.

Coupon-mad

Thanks Johnersh, we are already on the right track then.  That is what the OP has already done, pretty much, last week.

No reply from DCBLegal.  I wonder if that email was received?  Might even be worth a phone call, demanding to speak to one of their solicitors and no-one else as an explanation is urgently needed.