CCJ discovered on Credit report. Claim Form sent to old address.

KeithP

mric2000 said:

I have now received a letter back from the courts requesting me to pay a counter-claim fee of £70. Failure to pay this fee within 7 days means that the counter-claim will not be actioned. 

Is this standard procedure, given that I have included my costs form etc?

This is the first mention of a counterclaim on this thread.
Yes, filing a counterclaim attracts a fee.
What are you counterclaiming for?

You don't need to counterclaim for your costs.
If that's all you are thinking about, then let the seven days pass and the counterclaim will disappear.

mric2000

Thank you @KeithP

Yes, this was my point of confusion.

I have only submitted a Defence, along with a supporting Costs sheet. I was guessing they were seeing my claim for costs as a counter-claim.

Your assurance settles my mind, so I'll leave it run by.

Thanks again

Le_Kirk

When you completed the AOS back before you wrote and submitted your defence, did you tick any boxes on MCOL that said you were counterclaiming?

Coupon-mad

Le_Kirk said:

When you completed the AOS back before you wrote and submitted your defence, did you tick any boxes on MCOL that said you were counterclaiming?

The thread title suggests this was a CCJ set aside case (I haven't read back) and if so, there was no AOS stage.

KeithP

Le_Kirk said:

When you completed the AOS back before you wrote and submitted your defence, did you tick any boxes on MCOL that said you were counterclaiming?

Even if he did, it really doesn't matter.
As I said earlier, if that request by the court for money is ignored, any counterclaim or potential counterclaim effectively disappears.

Le_Kirk

Good point @KeithP but it is good for the OP and anybody else reading this thread, to know why it happened, if indeed, that was the reason. Otherwise why would anybody, court or CCBC be after a fee?.

mric2000

OK, so as per the previous advice I didn't reply to pay any Counter Claim form. I'm not exactly sure why that came about, but will chalk it up as a clerical error - by them or me?

The current situation is that I received a court date with timelines for key actions.
The first action was that Gladstones were due to submit their documents to me and the court by 13th November.
These were not received by me and I have checked that the court has not received them either.

I am due to submit my documents by 27th November.

What is my best course of action here? Do I simply need to write to the court and confirm that nothing has been received and request their guidance. Presumably on that basis I can hold off from submitting my documents, pending their feedback.

Or do I structure the email in a way that specifically requests the case to be struck out with my costs to be paid?

Thanks as ever 

Coupon-mad

As this is post CCJ set aside hearing, you should do your bit to ensure you comply with the Order. Send in your WS bundle - see recent examples by @_blueberry_  or @vincentvega27 and a defence if that was what the Order said.

Point out in your covering email to the local court and Gladstones, that the Claimant did not comply with the Order of Judge xxxxxxxx, and nor have they filed or served a Notice of Discontinuance.  As such you now ask the court to award all your costs in full, due to unreasonable conduct by the Claimant.

Attach a costs assessment as your first PDF.

mric2000

Understood.
I'll crack on with it.
Thanks @Coupon-mad

mric2000

Hi all,

So, this has finally finished after the court case on Thursday (8th) and I'm happy to report its another win for the people! 

The solicitor for Gladstones had turned up, only just on time, and asked to talk with me in a separate room to ask what I would accept. I told him I will only accept them to cancel the case and pay me my requested fee. His response was that I'm probably not going to win and anything we could agree before the case was going to be better than what the judge will offer. I politely told him where to go. 

The judge read through his brief understanding of the case and then asked me to present my case.
I outlined my 5 main points that I wasnted to put forward:
1. Pre Action Protocol and abuse of process - i.e. the haphazard approach to getting to court, with missed dates and incorrect information etc from Gladstones
2. My dispute that no evidence had been given of when the signs were installed, or audited - my case being that the signs weren't present at the time of the alleged offence.
3. Market failure and the notion that their additional £70 is double recovery
4. Lack of certain evidence that the agreement was still in place between the landowner and Premier Park at the time - I conceded this point up front, as it was a technicality really and had partially been addressed by their WS.
5. Lack of clarity about their grace period. This was clutching at straws if I'm honest and I wasn't really expecting a lot from this point, but included it as I was in effect only 2 minutes over their suggested grace period.


The judge largely dismissed point 1, which I accepted as Points 2 and 3 were my main focus. 
In presenting point 2, I highlighted that the Claimant had included a google map showing the location of signs in the car park. 
In my Defence and WS I had raised a point about this map not being time stamped and had also pointed out that they had never provided any dates for when the signs were installed or audited, despite me requesting this information. 

I had managed to find a livestream on Facebook of a local news company, which was taken from the opening of the Starbucks (where I said I would tend to park when I visit this retail park), in September 2017. Using screenshots with comparisons of their map, I showed that none of these signs were present at that time. 
The judge accepted this, but made the point that this doesn't follow that the signs were not present at the time of the incident in April 2018. 
I agreed with this, but then reiterated that they have failed to provide me with any dates to confirm when the signs were installed. 
I also highlighted that the contract with the landowner stated that signs wouldn't be up from the start of the contract (Aug 17) and initially the site would be managed by physical patrols.
The kicker to this was that their map was clearly from before the opening of the Starbucks, as you could see that part of the site was still in development. Therefore they had clearly presented a map from before Sept 2017, which showed that signs were present, which they blatantly weren't at that time. 
This was the main factor in the outcome.

In addition I presented photos that I had taken from March 2023 when the signs were present. I argued that 3 of the signs on their map were relevant to my approach and usual parking spot. Their solicitor objected and fumbled about for a while and later came back with reference to the London Borough Council case (at which point it was irrelevant).
However in presenting the images of the signs I proved that one of the signs was in fact only stating the opening and closing times of the car park. I argued that, as this sign was included in their map suggesting it was a sign realating to parking terms etc, this is in fact false evidence as it had no connection to the signs they had included in their bundle. 

We had further discussion about one of the other signs that I believe was badly presented and not very obvious to a driver entering the site, but at that point the judge had heardn enough and made his judgement in my favour. The main point being that I had shown enough evidence that signs were not present at the time and that the Claimant had provided no evidence that they were, with the onus being on them to do so. 

When it came to costs, the judge initially explained that none would be awarded as it was a small claims court, costs were at the courts discretion and he was not prepared to award anything for my time, despite me outlining a full costs sheet including reference to CPR 27.14 and 46.5.

He also refused to award me the costs for my N244 fee of £275 to have the CCJ Set Aside. He stated that if I hadn't informed the DVLA and the Claimant got my address from the DVLA then I have no case. I referred to a document I had included showing the timeline of that whole debacle and that I had returned and updated my driving license in good time. He suggested that was insufficient and that I needed to have submitted a D5 form or something?

Anyway, I then highlighted that they had sent the LBC to my new address with a quoted line of "We wrote to you on 25th February 2022 at an alternate address. We have since carried out a UK Search trace, which has produced a new address for you". They then issued the Claim Form to my old address in May 22.
Of course the judge then changed his stance. Their solicitor (who just wanted to go home at this stage!) admitted that "my client has clearly scored an own goal there". So they now need to pay the £275 back to me within 14 days.

In hindsight, I'm a bit disappointed I didn't stand firmer with regards to the other costs, as this has been a real pain in the neck over the last year or so. That said, in the heat of the moment, I was very happy to have the thing closed off, with a win and with my money back, as well as the fact that I enjoyed the whole court experience, mainly due to the fact that I was very organised and knew exactly what my case was (in stark comparison to their solicitor who was just throwing in random case references and legal jargon/blag).

So a big thank you yet again to all who manage these this forum. Your efforts are very much appreciated!
Also a huge thank you to @Coupon-mad @KeithP @Le_Kirk @1505grandad @Umkomaas @B789 for your comments and feedback for my thread - again I am very grateful.

Best regards