Help CCJ PCN Set Aside - Have I left it too late?

1505grandad

"3 Under British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme which UK PARKING CONTROL LTD...."

Who is the claimant for this particular documentation?

Le_Kirk

You have used the term PENALTY NOTICE when it should be Parking Change Notice surely; also noticed in one of your earlier iterations of your defence you have used the incorrect (short) statement of truth.  Ask Auntie Google for the correct one.

Coupon-mad

Remove all 'me, my, and I' from the skeleton and don't make submissions of opinion, so not even 'the Defendant concludes that'. 

And as above remove the word 'penalty'.

But if you are HONESTLY saying in the defence that you know nothing about the parking event or who was driving (and DO NOT lie!) then how do you know this?

"All signs were obscured by darkness and rain at the time."

paulr23

1.3 Furthermore to this, any letters since the defendant moved from the address where the claim was sent to were marked as not known at this address and returned to sender, which the claimant would have been made aware of as they would have received returned mail, but still decided to take action instead of using the defendants last known residence, which would have been correct.

Is this true in your circumstance? I noticed this is what I wrote and have a witness statement as evidence of this, so also remove this if untrue. 

I would read through what you've wrote carefully as my case is not necessarily going to be exactly the same circumstances as yours, albeit similar and it looks very much like (from reading through your thread & circumstances) some parts of what I've wrote don't apply.

Just my 2cents on this.

Coupon-mad

Good spot - and very pleased to see you actively helping us, @paulr23

popiu44

1505grandad said:

"3 Under British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme which UK PARKING CONTROL LTD...."

Who is the claimant for this particular documentation?

There are 2 PCN's so I will be writing out a pre-hearing bundle for each one. 

Highview Parking Limited - DCB Legal

Bristol Parking Services Ltd - BW Legal 

popiu44

IN THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.:  xxx

Between

Highview Parking Limited

(Claimant) 

- and -  

victim 10 millionth

 (Defendant)

_________________

SKELETON ARGUMENT

 1 Under CPR 13.2 The court must set aside a judgement entered under part 12 if judgement was wrongly entered.  Given that CPR 6.9 (3) was not met, CPR 13.2 applies and the CCJ should be set aside. As I did not give an address to the claimant at which I could be served, primarily because I was not asked, CPR 6.9 applies. CPR 6.9 stipulates that an "Individual" should be served at their "Usual or last known residence."

 1.2 The defendant was not aware of the CCJ applied following a credit check 29 March 2022,  the letters regarding the claim was sent to an incorrect address,  which the defendant moved out from in January 2021, the defendants details with DVLA were correct at all times, the defendant had all bills, DVLA documents, mortgage and council tax at the new address since January 2021 so was there to be found.

1.3 Furthermore to this, any letters since the defendant moved from the address where the claim was sent to were never responded to so the Claimant may have been aware their correspondence was not being received and the address being used for a PCN issued many years before may not have been good for service especially given the frequency and problems caused by this type of litigation.

1.4 The Claimant should have made more effort to locate the Defendant given the problem of bulk-litigation in this industry and the problems this causes unknowing Defendants. The defendant had switched bank accounts, mortgage, bills and DVLA documents at the start of 2021. The Defendant would clearly be visible to the Claimant had proper checks been made. 

 2. Given that more than 4 months has passed from issue of proceedings and service of the claim was defective (i.e. it was never served) the Defendant submits that this particular claim is dead and the period for service cannot be extended by this application process.  The Defendant has no details of this claim, therefore, if the Claimant believes there is a cause of action then the correct procedure would be to file a claim afresh and to the right address, after furnishing the Defendant with the information required under the pre-action protocol for debt claims, issued this time to the correct address for service for this Defendant, which is X

2.2 There are several authorities for this, including the judgement in Boxwood [2021] EWHC 947 (TCC), which is a reminder of the strictness of the requirements of CPR 7.6 and how difficult it is to use other parts of the Civil Procedure Rules to rectify a failure to serve the claim form within the requisite period: “A claimant is not entitled to rely on the wide, general powers under CPR 3.10 or CPR 3.9 to circumvent the specific conditions set out in CPR 7.6(3) for extending the period for service of a claim form.

2.3 In Vinos v Marks & Spencer plc [2001] 3 All ER 784 the Court of Appeal considered whether any extension of time should be granted under CPR 7.6 in circumstances where the defendant had been notified of the issue of a claim form but the claim form had not been served within four months as required by CPR 7.5 and the application was made after expiry of that period. The court refused to grant relief on the basis that it did not have power to do so.

3 Under British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme which UK PARKING CONTROL LTD are a part of their code of practice states 23.1.C “Before serving a Letter Before Claim and prior to the issue of proceedings, Operators must, if no responses have been received to the NTD/NTK/reminder letters, take reasonable endeavours to ensure that the contact details for the person you are writing to are correct.” The claimant held more than one possible address and could and should have sent their LBC to both, to try to engage with me and not just rely on any old address that popped up in my credit history

4 Given that the claimant only knew my last known address which they obtained from the DVLA,  ignored the possibility that I may have moved since a PCN was issued several years prior,  had no previous response and failed to make sufficient checks to locate my new address, I would conclude that a set aside is mandatory under CPR 13.2 due to the claimants incorrect service to an inaccurate address.

Coupon-mad

Coupon-mad said:

Remove all 'me, my, and I' from the skeleton and don't make submissions of opinion, so not even 'the Defendant concludes that'. 

Repeating the above.  You still have personal submissions in a skelly and that is wrong. e.g. 'I did this/that':

 As I did not give an address to the claimant at which I could be served, primarily because I was not asked, 

And:

"the Defendant submits that..."

And:

you have a 'me' and a 'my' still in it.

This isn't a witness statement from a person, so those words all need to come out.

And despite it being noticed by the eagle eye of @1505grandad and flagged by him, you are still naming a completely wrong PPC:

 "UK PARKING CONTROL LTD "

Errrrr...who?

paulr23

popiu44 said:

3 Under British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme which UK PARKING CONTROL LTD are a part of their code of practice states 23.1.C “Before serving a Letter Before Claim and prior to the issue of proceedings, Operators must, if no responses have been received to the NTD/NTK/reminder letters, take reasonable endeavours to ensure that the contact details for the person you are writing to are correct.” The claimant held more than one possible address and could and should have sent their LBC to both, to try to engage with me and not just rely on any old address that popped up in my credit history

You reference Highview Parking Limited at the top but have referenced UK PC LTD in here, I would correct this and also make sure both claimants are part of the BPA AOS (use google)

popiu44

VICTORY!!!

The 2 cases were back-to-back, same judge.

First case Bristol Parking Services (BW Legal).
Judge agreed defective service as to wrong address
Claimant in bundle reported 2 x traces to Equifax
I got Equifax report as you suggested - there was only 1 earlier one 
I noted this 'anomaly'  to the judge
Judge struck-out claim and applied 4-month rule and made them pay £275 application fee
I didn't add my costs in beforehand unfortunately so couldn't get them
So, overall you guys were spot-on and it all went to plan. 

Second Case Highview Parking Limited (DCB Legal)
Judge agreed defective service as to wrong address
I got Equifax report as you suggested - there were no traces and I said this
Judge struck-out claim and made them pay £275 application fee
I didn't add my costs in beforehand unfortunately so couldn't get them
So, overall you guys were spot-on and it all went to plan. 

One small issue with this case:
The judge did permit the 4-month rule to kill the claim and allowed them to re-serve the claim within 14 days.  His reasoning was that they had sent me legal 'warnings' to my old address while I still lived there. This seemed besides the point to me but I wasn't fast enough to come up with any legal argument why he shouldn't do this. So, I will have to file a defence and go through the motions but I am still very happy as both the judgements will be removed and the fees paid by the claimant.

Many thanks to everyone who helped, especially Coupon-Mad.