CCJ sent to my old address

Johnersh

will I need to have an argument of why the parking ticket shouldn't have been issued in the first place?

Ideally, but not necessarily. The fact is your usual residential address was not the one notified to the court. The ppc is, in effect, seeking to levy a higher parking charge plus interest for their own negligence.

Once they delayed commencing proceedings the onus was on them to check your usual residential address, particularly where preceding correspondence had elicited no response. 

The set aside argument is that the judgment is unsafe. 

Coupon-mad

Have you sent in a skeleton argument and transcripts to support the 4 months dead argument (assuming the claim was dated more than 4 months ago)? Not links, not just mentioning the cases. The actual Judge's transcripts that are easy to Google or find on CCJ set aside threads here this Summer.

You still have time to file and serve a skeleton argument (and yes, to CEL's litigation email legal3@).

There are now four court transcripts to attach in full, to support the 4 months dead argument:

Boxwood
Vinos v M&S
Croke
Piepenbrock

These are as seen in threads by:

@Jack5656 
@GlassRoof36 

And you need to append the BPA Code of Practice (not a link, the full exhibit if you haven't already) to show that what CEL did was against the Code, which makes address checks mandatory before litigation.

Have you also sent in a costs assessment yet? You want your £275 fee (and any loss pf leave/salary for attending the hearing) awarded against CEL due to their unreasonable conduct.

You have to serve the costs assessment to CEL in advance.  And please don't forget to ask for your costs at the end of the hearing!

chriscctw

No, the only thing I have sent in was my witness statement and draft order. I hoped that this would suffice in regards to getting a mandatory set aside. 

I also haven't sent in a costs assessment either, in my draft order I requested that costs were to be paid by the defendant. It seems I have a lot more work to do before next week!

chriscctw

Sorry, 2 more questions, what is the difference between a draft defence/ skeleton argument and a supplement to the original WS? 

Now the hearing has been moved to my local court, who do I email the information to?

Le_Kirk

chriscctw said:

No, the only thing I have sent in was my witness statement and draft order. I hoped that this would suffice in regards to getting a mandatory set aside. 

But you are trying to get it all killed off at the set-aside hearing; those cases suggested by @Coupon-mad and @Johnersh will help you do that.

Johnersh

One thing at a time. 

The essential is the application and WS.  If successful, the court fee should be asked for and should be permitted as that is a standard order. 

If you want unreasonable behaviour costs, bear in mind that is not often awarded and the costs you seek relation to that (usually on an hourly rate basis) need to be itemised and sent both to the claimant and the court not less than 24hrs before the hearing.

A skelly is a device to summarise the legal arguments. In the county courts witness statements often seem to blend fact and legal argument, so not every defendant feels the need to produce one.  It's not a bad discipline (even if you never send it) if it helps marshal your thoughts - kinda like revision notes from school 

chriscctw

Thanks for the response, @Johnersh I am not looking to apply for unreasonable behaviour costs, just the court fee, which I included in my draft order.

I have had my SAR from DVLA through since I sent in my application, which shows that my address was changed with them before CEL applied for the CCJ to be taken out on me. Do I send it through as a supplementary WS? Do I send it through to the court that is hearing my case? Is that the court I detail at the top of the supplementary WS?

I have produced a skeleton argument to help me, but it's hand written and not quite up to the standard for a court to see!

Johnersh

You can do.

What has happened here is that your details were requested in October immediately after the parking event and filed. 

Whilst there was a delay with the V5C even if you notified the dvla a day after the parking event, this would still have occurred, because the failure is on the claimant not to investigate the correct address prior to the commencement of proceedings.

Ironically, the dvla don't provide repeat info for the same event, so basically they'd need to do a desktop credit/electoral roll search. Provided your new address flags on those systems they could have corresponded prior to issue.

It's remarkable how many of these cases those simple enquiries are overlooked pre-proceedings, but readily undertaken once a default judgment is secured. This forum can only be anecdotal evidence, but it is clear that their model relies heavily on admissions and default judgments without much care for proper procedures. 

chriscctw

So I had my hearing this morning and unfortunately it didn’t go well.

The judge was not accepting that only relying on an old V5 address was unacceptable, she glossed over the point that the V5 was of my current address when they started proceedings, she kept going back to it being incorrect at the time of the PCN. I don’t feel however I pushed this as much as I should.

When I said they could have used any of the other forms of my address she said why should they.

She told me she would set aside the CCJ in line with the claimant’s offer (£85 and not covering of the set aside fee) and asked why I hadn’t responded to the claimants offer letter they sent through last month.

She finished off with a snide comment about being more careful with how and where I park in the future.

Thank you for every bodies help on this. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to put across my argument as well as I wanted to.

Coupon-mad

Hmmm...the answer to 'why should they?' is that the mandatory Code of Practice states they 'must' take steps to check addresses before filing a claim.  So do the CPRs.

Bad Judge.  Sadly, there are some.

Anyway you got the CCJ set aside?