CCBC Claim Timeline - what next?

Guferos

Hi,

Thanks for any help in advance.

I was issued with parking charge by Parking Eye LTD for apparently breaking their conditions of parking and overstaying on a motorway for around 30 minutes. I ignored all their correspondency until I received the County Court claim to which I responded as described below:

I received a County Court Business Centre Claim from on behalf of Parking Eye LTD issued on 31/01/2022.
I acknowledged the service online at moneyclaim.gov.uk on 17/02/2022.
I submitted my defence online at moneyclaim.gov.uk on 03/03/2022.
I received a copy of "Directions questionnaire" (N180) completed on behalf of Parking Eye LTD by post on 20/03/2022.

I've logged in today into the moneyclaim.gov.uk portal and there are no more documents for me to complete or anything. Could anyone help me figure out what should I do next? I cannot find any information online and I am freaking out that I am going to miss some deadlines. What I would like to do next is:

1) I want to inform the Court that I want to claim my costs back from the claimant (time spend on dealing with this crap etc.)
2) I want to inform the Court that I am not available one week in April due to a holiday so I cannot attend the Court
3) I was only able to submit a short defence statement online and I would like to submit additional documentation supporting my defence as well as some more explanations. 

I have no clue when/where this should be done. Should I wait for more corespondency from the Court? Or I should do something asap? I am completely lost, have anyone went through this process before?

Thanks,
Damian

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

You are currently waiting for your Directions Questionnaire from the CCBC. You have already received a copy of the Claimant's DQ.

Does your MCOL Claim History show that your Defence was received?

The CCBC sent you a letter, or will send you a letter, saying the Claimant had twenty eight days to consider your Defence.

What you don't know is when the CCBC sent a copy of your Defence to the Claimant. 

It follows from that that it is not known when the Claimant has to respond to the CCBC. 

Further, we don't know what delays there are in the CCBC that means they don't send you a Directions Questionnaire as promptly as you might like.

Can I suggest that you keep checking your MCOL Claim History and as soon as you see that the CCBC has sent a DQ to you, you are ready to download a DQ, complete it and fire it back to the CCBC, remembering to send a copy to the Claimant of course?

When filing your Defence, did you follow the guidance in the template Defence thread?

Have you read the second post of the NEWBIES thread?

Coupon-mad

1) I want to inform the Court that I want to claim my costs back from the claimant (time spend on dealing with this crap etc.)
2) I want to inform the Court that I am not available one week in April due to a holiday so I cannot attend the Court
3) I was only able to submit a short defence statement online and I would like to submit additional documentation supporting my defence as well as some more explanations. 
I have no clue when/where this should be done. Should I wait for more corespondency from the Court? Or I should do something asap? I am completely lost, have anyone went through this process before?

You need to slow down because you've gone off-piste and we win 99% of defended cases, so it's a shame you've already done a short defence.

Never mind.  All your Qs are already answered in the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread.

Guferos

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

You are currently waiting for your Directions Questionnaire from the CCBC. You have already received a copy of the Claimant's DQ.

Does your MCOL Claim History show that your Defence was received?

The CCBC sent you a letter, or will send you a letter, saying the Claimant had twenty eight days to consider your Defence.

What you don't know is when the CCBC sent a copy of your Defence to the Claimant. 

It follows from that that it is not known when the Claimant has to respond to the CCBC. 

Further, we don't know what delays there are in the CCBC that means they don't send you a Directions Questionnaire as promptly as you might like.

Can I suggest that you keep checking your MCOL Claim History and as soon as you see that the CCBC has sent a DQ to you, you are ready to download a DQ, complete it and fire it back to the CCBC, remembering to send a copy to the Claimant of course?

When filing your Defence, did you follow the guidance in the template Defence thread?

Have you read the second post of the NEWBIES thread?

Thanks very much for your response.

It’s reassuring to know that I am awaiting corespondency from the Court now, I worried that there may be something else I need to submit before hand. 

I’ve been checking MCOL Claim History every day and there is nothing new yet. The history is currently at “Your defence was received on 03/03/2022” step. Everything was done and completed within the required timescale so I need to await for the Directions of Questionnaire now I guess. 

I did check the NEWBIES thread and some other threads in here. I am very impressed with the amount of advice in here, it was extremely helpful when preparing my defence. 

The parking charge notice received from the Parking Eye LTD. is for overstaying at Motorway services parking by 30 minutes. I probably should appeal the ticket at earlier phase but I was extremely annoyed for receiving it from a place like Motorway services which is technically built for that one single purpose, for drivers to stop and rest. I’ve been living in the UK for about 17 years now and only learnt recently that motorway parkings have time limits which is absolutely shocking. Anyway, I am very confident that I have strong arguments to defend this case in court. I built my defence based on these three points below:

1. Unclear, Inadequate and Non-Compliant Signage - the site’s entrance signs Group 1 text is only 42mm and they should be at least 120mm if approached from a road with a typical speed of 40mph. 
2. Signage not compliant with Motorway Service Station Requirements - there are no parking conditions signs within the amenity building
3. ANPR not located at the parking entrance/exit - the APNR cameras are located on the entry/exit of the service’s site and not actually at the entrances of the parking’s areas. Apart from the parking area, there is a petrol station and a Starbucks Cafe located outside the parking area and without any parking signage whatsoever. Therefore there is no way to tell how much time I spent on the actual parking. I could spent 30 minutes on the petrol station, 1 hour in the Starbucks and 1 hour on their parking and these scammers would still issue a charge ticket for that. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, I want to reclaim costs of preparing my defence and dealing with this case. Would you know what could be claimed back if I win the case? I would expect that I can probably claim the costs of missing day at work + travel expenses when attending the court. I would also like to claim costs for preparing the defence, but not sure if should use my hourly rate (as the one in my employment contract) or average solicitor’s rate for that. Plus I am thinking about adding the costs for the time when I had to re-visit the site and collect materials for my defence. 

Thanks for the help,

Damian. 

Guferos

Coupon-mad said:

You need to slow down because you've gone off-piste and we win 99% of defended cases, so it's a shame you've already done a short defence.

Never mind.  All your Qs are already answered in the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread.

Why is that? I received the County Court Business Centre Claim and there was no way to skip the defence part on the MCOL website. I had to submit it within 14 days (or 28 days if service was acknowledge first). Have I done anything wrong? 

Coupon-mad

No, but you went off piste from the advice in the NEWBIES FAQS thread and template defence thread.  No-one uses MCOL for submitting the defence.  Our forum advice is clear about it, and the reason for emailing a full defence.

 IMHO you are now at a disadvantage but we'll try to help you rescue this at WS and evidence stage.

Guferos

I've just received the Small Claims Directions Questionnaire (N180). which I need to send back by 21st of April. 
I've checked the MCOL history and there are two new records there:

DQ filed by claimant on 04/04/2022

DQ sent to you on 04/04/2022

Could anyone help with next steps please? @Coupon-mad or @KeithP ?

There is not much on the form to complete so I could do it, but not sure if any documents should be attached at this stage and don't want to do any mistakes which can work in the Parking Eye favour. 

Fruitcake

You need to go back to the 12 step guide to court that you should have been following in the second post of the NEWBIES.

KeithP gave you a link to it when he replied to your post on the 28th of March.

Coupon-mad

This is already in the NEWBIES thread under the red heading: 'iMPORTANT - KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN' which includes every stage, every form and every tick box.

At every stage, re-read the NEWBIES thread - it's all there.

Guferos

Could someone help me with this?

I have sent my Witness Statement to Court and ParkingEye on 17th of July 2022 (you can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ptAYH9EkVQj_2bLGXl_B94DZ2_EsWjuE/view?usp=sharing  )  and today I received this response from ParkinEye by email:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE, SAVE AS TO COSTS

 

Dear XXXXXXX,

 

As a gesture of goodwill, we are willing to offer to discontinue the above referenced claim with no liability admitted and no further costs incurred by either side. This is conditional on you, the Defendant, also discontinuing your intention to seek costs against Parkingeye Limited, the Claimant.

 

It is Parkingeye’s position that your counterclaim has no legal basis as costs in defending proceedings are not claimable within the Small Claims Track, where the fixed costs regime applies (CPR 27.14). We further contend that the same should be struck out. 

 

In relation to any work undertaken in preparation of a defence or in responding to the proceedings, the Claimant would highlight that the amount of costs to be allowed for any item of work claimed will be either (pursuant to CPR 46.5(4)) –

 

• where the Defendant can prove financial loss, the amount that the Defendant can prove to have been lost for time reasonably spent on doing the work; or

 

• where the Defendant cannot prove financial loss, an amount for the time reasonably spent on doing the work at the rate set out in Practice Direction 46.

 

Parkingeye can confirm that the current allowable Litigant in Person rate is set at £19 per hour (PD 46 Para 3.4). However, the Defendant has not provided evidence of time spent on any such preparation, or any evidence to support a claim for financial loss.  

 

Furthermore, you did not submit a counterclaim with your defence and the relevant counterclaim fee has not been paid in order for your costs to be considered.

 

Please note, this offer is made to you on a Without Prejudice basis and as a gesture of goodwill, but will only remain open until 4pm on the 28th July 2022.

 

Please note, a copy of this offer has also been sent via post.

 

Kind Regards,

 

ParkingEye Enforcement Team

In my statement I asked the Court for my fixed witness costs to be payed by the claimant if I win the case. I am so annoyed by the whole thing and have spent so much time on research, collecting evidences, writing statements etc. so I really don't know what to do now. On one hand, I got what I wanted, they want to discontinue the claim with no liability but on the other hand I want them to pay for all the time I wasted on this crap and what I had to go through. Of course the only good reason to not accept their offer would be a chance of claiming these costs back (If I win the case though). Is it true in what they saying in their email that I don't have a chance to get any costs back? Should I accept their offer or go to the court? 

Coupon-mad

Your decision of course.  You have won - congrats -  ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

And being pragmatic about your chances; this seems to be an overstay at a MSA:

I was issued with parking charge by Parking Eye LTD for apparently breaking their conditions of parking and overstaying on a motorway for around 30 minutes.

In which case - if you carry on - I honestly don't think you'd win v ParkingEye. unless it was pitch black with no signs visible and you have evidence of that.  ParkingEye attend court (or a legal rep does) and their cases can be fairly watertight.

I'd accept that (IT IS A WIN!) and walk away and get my own back by lending your voice loud and strong, to the Govt's new Code of Practice by robustly responding to the Public Consultation to cap parking charges at lower rates in future, and denying ALL parking firms the prospect of charging fake and extortionate 'debt recovery fees' (ParkingEye don't do this but all the rest do).

We need to stop them all because the opposite effect will be handing about £70 million extra p.a. to ParkingEye... I am sure you want to make sure that doesn't happen and that parking charges are properly capped under £100.

If you don't know what I am on about, read on:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79345192#Comment_79345192

Bookmark certain threads and set up email alerts, so you and the drivers in your family don't miss the Public Consultation!  Later this year...it will be absolutely VITAL that high numbers of real consumer voices are heard.