CCJ from Old Address - Seeking Advice on Draft Order and WS

Troublesum1

Good evening all,

As always life has been extremely busy and I just landed back in the country from a family visit due to personal reasons. My hearing is tomorrow morning. While out of the country I received emails informing me that the hearing would now be a video call rather than in person in court.

So as @Coupon-mad suggested, I had a look at Jack's thread and tried to understand what happened there. I took from the thread it is sometimes necessary to lead the judge to the correct conclusion pertaining to CPR 13.2 so in the case the judge is of the mind to suggest the PPC was correct in using my vehicle's logbook address I will:

• Emphasis that there is no evidence of any soft search being done at any time
• Remind the judge that "no soft trace checks fails to meet the BPA Code of Practice and fails to satisfy the specific 'pre-action Protocol for debt claims' and is in breach of the CPRs about the obligation to take 'reasonable steps' to check a Defendant's address so that service is effective."

Also, I truly believe UKCPM to be in breach of the SAR process. They keep telling me they have no "personal data concerning" myself. I've now submitted 2 SARs, both met with the same response. They clearly do have such documents as they're in their witness statement so I don't know what game they're playing.

My biggest worry I guess is providing a strong defence for the original tickets. At this point I believe my defence will have to be centered around "primacy of contract" with the belief I had allocated parking despite the PPC signs. My tenancy agreement makes no reference to parking other than to say I am prohibited from applying for a council parking permit.

Thank you to everyone that has helped me here to date, I go into tomorrow with some confidence but due to life issues and developments I'm not fully locked in for tomorrow, I would be really appreciative for any last bits of advice! 

Johnersh

Some queries (not read the thread fully)...

Is the claimant turning up?

It seems to me that if C thought the claim had been properly served there would be no need to ask the court to dispense with service. 

Have you considered Cs order? You may be of the view that C should also not be permitted to in effect seek to amend their case with a document which is neither factual witness evidence (it's legal argument more than fact) nor is it a formal pleading.

The WS is from an employee who may have no actual knowledge of the site beyond what appears on her computer system. 

If the claim form is correctly served, then those are the particulars. No need for new ones. Have you considered whether C is now using this as an opportunity to amend and present a new case "by the back door?"

If as C says, Ds case has no merits why do they suggest the claim should proceed at all? Surely they should argue that the judgment, served correctly, should stand?

Given the terms of the order they seek, it is self evident that they consider there to be an arguable defence. 

Once C elicited two addresses the onus was on them to check, not to send out court docs and hope for the best, particularly given the second address post dated the first. 

If instructed by a residents management company did they enquire if D was still resident? Did they seek any forwarding address? As parking agent of the property managers one ought to think that the details would be freely given. Did they write to the new address more than once? Did they consider obtaining a duplicate claim form and to serve at both addresses? (yes that is a thing). There's nothing to suggest they did. 

Obviously raise the issues that best suit the facts of your case, but the o/p should probably seek to recover the costs of any application made. The correct course would've been to consent to a set aside from the outset not in documents filed shortly before a court hearing. 

Troublesum1

Johnersh said:

Some queries (not read the thread fully)...

Is the claimant turning up?

No

It seems to me that if C thought the claim had been properly served there would be no need to ask the court to dispense with service. 

Have you considered Cs order? You may be of the view that C should also not be permitted to in effect seek to amend their case with a document which is neither factual witness evidence (it's legal argument more than fact) nor is it a formal pleading.

By amendment I assume you're referring to them ordering the judge to set aside the judgement? Yes I did find it very strange that they seem to be disagreeing with my defence but then ordering the judge to set aside (albeit with no compensation)

The WS is from an employee who may have no actual knowledge of the site beyond what appears on her computer system. 

If the claim form is correctly served, then those are the particulars. No need for new ones. Have you considered whether C is now using this as an opportunity to amend and present a new case "by the back door?"

Very possible - do you think this is something I should bring up in court?

If as C says, Ds case has no merits why do they suggest the claim should proceed at all? Surely they should argue that the judgment, served correctly, should stand?

Agreed

Given the terms of the order they seek, it is self evident that they consider there to be an arguable defence. 

Once C elicited two addresses the onus was on them to check, not to send out court docs and hope for the best, particularly given the second address post dated the first. 

If instructed by a residents management company did they enquire if D was still resident? Did they seek any forwarding address? As parking agent of the property managers one ought to think that the details would be freely given. Did they write to the new address more than once? Did they consider obtaining a duplicate claim form and to serve at both addresses? (yes that is a thing). There's nothing to suggest they did. 

They did none of these to my knowledge. No such evidence supplied in Cs WS and none seen via SAR as they for some reason claim they have nothing under my name and address in their data

Obviously raise the issues that best suit the facts of your case, but the o/p should probably seek to recover the costs of any application made. The correct course would've been to consent to a set aside from the outset not in documents filed shortly before a court hearing. 

Hello Johnersh,

Thank you very much for your reply it has definitely helped me get my head in the game.

I'm not 100% sure which of your questions are rhetorical just to get me to think and which are questions you would like the answer to so I've endeavoured to just answer them all.

I will be certain to update you all on the outcome tomorrow.

Johnersh

Questions are intentionally rhetorical since only you can decide what arguments/points to put to a judge, not me.

If they're a no-show then at least that's helpful, coupled with the tacit acknowledgement that they may not have correctly served (after all it also appears from the WS that a credit trace may have revealed your address).

You can Google the court rules for service at a last known residence/address  too (CPR 6.9) which explain the obligations to check addresses. 

For clarification, when I referred to an amendment I simply meant that if the WS stands in substitution for the detail in the claim form, it's quite a different beast. Normally you'd need to apply to the court to advance new or more detailed argument. That's why I don't like Cs approach here. 

Coupon-mad

If it's UKCPM they aren't subject to the BPA Code of Practice.  UKCPM are an IPC firm, not BPA.  IPC CoP applies.

But is it UKCPM? Who does the witness statement from the Claimant's solicitor state the full name of the Claimant parking firm are?

Having received blank SAR returns from a parking firm (twice) are you sure your SAR went to the correct parking firm?  i suspect it didn't.  People typically muddle up UKCPM, PCM UK and UKPC.  We've seen that before. I could be wrong but maybe you emailed the wrong company - wrong DPO?

Troublesum1

Coupon-mad said:

If it's UKCPM they aren't subject to the BPA Code of Practice.  UKCPM are an IPC firm, not BPA.  IPC CoP applies.

But is it UKCPM? Who does the witness statement from the Claimant's solicitor state the full name of the Claimant parking firm are?

Having received blank SAR returns from a parking firm (twice) are you sure your SAR went to the correct parking firm?  i suspect it didn't.  People typically muddle up UKCPM, PCM UK and UKPC.  We've seen that before. I could be wrong but maybe you emailed the wrong company - wrong DPO?

On my email from the court it says:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LIMITED v Me. Maybe I'm not sending the SAR to the right place but it looks correct?? (see attached)

Either way, my hearing starts in 30 minutes, showtime..

Umkomaas

Either way, my hearing starts in 30 minutes, showtime..

🕰️ best of luck. Let us know how it goes. 

Troublesum1

Hello All!

@Coupon-mad@Johnersh @Le_Kirk (just tagging those who have been involved)

So I think it went well? Judge ordered the set a side though he did say it was "by the skin of your teeth" but he reserved the costs of the application based on the outcome of the defence against the claim (if I understand correctly). He said I must file a defence by the 7th August. I'm assuming the claim is going to be reissued for me to do this?? Claimant did not turn up as expected.

I wasn't sure if I should have pressed more for the fees to be ordered to me or not but the Judge seemed nice, didn't seem like he was doing me a disservice - I might be wrong. I guess onto making some type of a defence now! Does this mean the CCJ should come off my credit account now?

Coupon-mad

No the claim won't be reissued.  You MUST just do what the Judge ordered.

Well done!  CCJ will come off within weeks.

Why "by the skin of your teeth"?

What on earth was his problem with understanding that a claim sent to an old, unchecked address cannot be deemed by any court to be 'properly served' and that set aside was MANDATORY under CPR 13.2?

I'm so glad you read Jack5656's thread and realised exactly what to say to convince a Judge that an old DVLA 'vehicle address' where it's kept is NOT an address for service!

Looks like you did send the SAR to the right parking firm but maybe you were giving your current address when all they hold is the old one.

Troublesum1

Coupon-mad said:

No the claim won't be reissued.  You MUST just do what the Judge ordered.

Well done!  CCJ will come off within weeks.

Why "by the skin of your teeth"?

What on earth was his problem with understanding that a claim sent to an old, unchecked address isn't properly served and that set aside was MANDATORY under CPR 13.2?

Looks like you did send the SAR to the right parking firm but maybe you were giving your current address when all they hold is the old one.

Thank you so much for all your help, literally couldn't have done it without your help.

I'm unsure why it was "by the skin," the judge did not elaborate and I didn't feel the need to ask him since it seemed I was getting what I wanted anyway..

How do I file a defence against the claim now? Sorry if this is explained somewhere already..

With regards to the SAR, they have sent me evidence that appears to show they have used all possible variations of my name with both my old and new address and still have come up with no data on myself. It's very strange. The only additional thing I can do is give them the VRM of the vehicle in question.