Getting change of address sorted for PCNs

Lought_TA

Thank you @Coupon-mad! Helped very much by this fine forum to pull together.

I have some formatting stuff to sort in the Word doc before I PDF it so will do that and send before this Friday's deadline.

One final (hopefully!) question from me - in the correspondence I've received from the court it says all docs need to be sent to the Court Manager. Online, I can only find a general enquiries e-mail alongside other e-mails that aren't relevant (e.g. Family Court, Enforcement, etc) for this court. I assume I can just e-mail this general enquires mail and address it to the Court Manager, alongside copying in DCBL?

I don't need to find a specific Court Manager e-mail?

Coupon-mad

I'd phone the court to ask. 

Fiodor

Lought_TA said:

Thank you @Coupon-mad! Helped very much by this fine forum to pull together.

I have some formatting stuff to sort in the Word doc before I PDF it so will do that and send before this Friday's deadline.

One final (hopefully!) question from me - in the correspondence I've received from the court it says all docs need to be sent to the Court Manager. Online, I can only find a general enquiries e-mail alongside other e-mails that aren't relevant (e.g. Family Court, Enforcement, etc) for this court. I assume I can just e-mail this general enquires mail and address it to the Court Manager, alongside copying in DCBL?

I don't need to find a specific Court Manager e-mail?

I send you Dm 

Lought_TA

So was given a deadline to submit Witness Statement to court and claimant by 19th Jan - this was explicit in the court order I received. Was sent to both parties on time.

Had heard nothing from DCBL until today when I get an e-mail stating - "Please find attached our Client's Witness Statement for the hearing on xxx.

We confirm it has been filed with the Court."

I'm going to e-mail the court with this e-mail as an attachment as that is a clear breach of the court order. I also still don't have a copy of their WS as the attachment doesn't work. (The file is a very small size so possibly they have tried to zip it and sent a wrong or corrupted file)

Coupon-mad

If you email, point out all of the above but you are going to have to also copy in DCB.

Or, keep schtum... a party has no duty to point out the error of the other side. Shhhhh.

Chances are the court can't open it either and you can (at the hearing) raise this verbally as a 'Preliminary Matter', asking for it to be struck out along with the Claim itself, due to the above very late filing/serving and due to the persuasive appeal case of Civil Enforcement v Chan (that I hope was one of your WS exhibits).

Lought_TA

Thanks @Coupon-mad - is it not worth ringing the court (or at least the Family & Civil Service Line I'd be put through to at first) and state I've not received a WS yet and it is in breach of the court order? 

Le_Kirk

Lought_TA said:

Thanks @Coupon-mad - is it not worth ringing the court (or at least the Family & Civil Service Line I'd be put through to at first) and state I've not received a WS yet and it is in breach of the court order? 

A phone call is worth the paper it is (not) printed on!  All correspondence by e-mail and then you have a record.  You could ring to follow up your e-mail.

Coupon-mad

Lought_TA said:

Thanks @Coupon-mad - is it not worth ringing the court (or at least the Family & Civil Service Line I'd be put through to at first) and state I've not received a WS yet and it is in breach of the court order? 

No, not now, but do wait until a couple of days before the hearing and THEN ring and ask if the hearing is still going ahead.

Lought_TA

Ok - thank you @Le_Kirk and @Coupon-mad!

I was holding off e-mailing due to @Coupon-mad's note above mentioning that I would also need to inform DCB. I'll not make any contact until a few days before the hearing now then.

Lought_TA

So an interesting day in court today - resulting in not a defeat, nor a win as the case has been adjourned.

Claimant's rep gave some overview of the case but before he went into detail around their argument, the judge (who had clearly read all the docs) noted that I had a preliminary matter around the PoCs. He then gave me the opportunity to add more detail to this (in which I quoted CEL vs Chan) and he agreed that the PoCs were lacking.

The Claimant's rep then dismissed this and tried to add that the Witness Statement from them would give an overview and provide the PoCs so it was here I mentioned that I was yet to receive one and brought e-mail proof about the corrupt version they had served me.

Judge was distinctly unimpressed with poor PoCs, a late submission of the WS from them (2 1/2 weeks late) and sending me a faulty one so gave their rep some time to speak to their instructors about why the WS was late. (The reason was they hadn't read the judge's order and so submitted no later than 14 days before the hearing rather than the explicit date on the order)

Judge (who I thought was very nice throughout and explained some terms to me as we went along) stated here that he couldn't make a judgement today and so gave the order that within 14 days of the court order; updated PoCs are sent through and I'm re-served their WS. I then have 14 days from that date to send an updated Defence before a new court date in c.48 days time (likely later).

I asked why he wasn't striking the claim out there and then and he said that he wasn't for two reasons; 1) the current issues with paperwork and PoCs can be resolved and so he has given time for all parties to get that resolved and 2) if he struck out the claim, it is likely the Claimant would resubmit a new claim with updated PoCs anyway and he felt that isn't a great use of court's time and resources.

I think the Claimant's rep knew he had got away with one as he scarpered out the room pretty pronto after that judgement and was straight back on the phone.

So more work still to do! An immediate question is if my new court date falls on a day I'm not available can I send an advocate in my place? I'm away with work quite a lot coming up so a new date could be problematic as I expected the case to be resolved today.