PE discontinued at the site of the Beavis case! (Alleged overstay, Equality Act defence)

Coupon-mad

I doubt they asked for 'special directions'?

drellix

They didn't, but I erred on the side of caution from bargepole's old 2016 thread wherein a special directions question was used in the D1 slot (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5546325/court-claim-procedure-updated-october-2016/p1).

Is the CCBC inbox still one of those which refuses stuff sent outside of business hours? If so, I might re-submit the form with that bit omitted on Monday after 9am.

Umkomaas

drellix said:

They didn't, but I erred on the side of caution from bargepole's old 2016 thread wherein a special directions question was used in the D1 slot (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5546325/court-claim-procedure-updated-october-2016/p1).

Is the CCBC inbox still one of those which refuses stuff sent outside of business hours? If so, I might re-submit the form with that bit omitted on Monday after 9am.

It's dodgy, some have received acknowledgment, but many haven't. Try it to test over the weekend, but if no ack, do it again on Monday. Over and above that, Gmail causes too many problems to bother with, so use another email account if Gmail is your usual one. 

B789

drellix said:
I'd have added more but the box is fairly small.

You can just overlay a text box on to the D1 answer box and add the full text using Arial 9pt just like this:

drellix

Hello again all, and hopefully the festive period is treating you all well.

Looks like my local court have finally gotten through the backlog; they've assigned a date for the hearing. However, I'm out of the country at the time. I've had a look around but not seen anything specific and recent about attempting to reschedule the hearing date - other than to contact the court / Judge directly, is there a better approach I can take?

KeithP

Back in June you had the opportunity to tell the court all the dates when you were unavailable.
Has the court ignored that information?

drellix

The N180 which I submitted in early June asked only for dates within the next six months that I would be unavailable. My absence from the country was both nebulous at the time, and in February, so I didn't include it.

Coupon-mad

And you didn't update it once you knew you'd be away?  One email would have stopped this happening.

Now you will have to beg the Claimant's solicitors to agree to a change of date or you'll have to pay the court a fee of over £100.

drellix

It's a timings issue, I think.

I only knew for certain of the dates I'd be away as of last Thursday evening. I received the letter itself on Thursday morning, but wasn't at home at the time, so only opened it on Friday morning. The content of the letter itself is dated September 24th, despite the actual sending date being December 5th. I haven't received any other correspondence since June.

I fail to see how this is an error on my end, to be frank. If they'd wanted a full 12 months of availability, for instance, I'd have simply blocked out February, but they didn't ask. Even if they did ask, the dates of my absence from the country were not finalised until the morning that the letter from the Court dropped through. Even if I had informed them of the specific dates that I had been out of the country at the moment they had been finalised, it would have made little difference anyway, because the hearing date had been decided months ago. If the wheels of this infernal system had moved quicker, or if the wording in the N180 form had been updated to reflect the reality of the current delays in the system, or I had received correspondence in a timelier manner, this issue would have been avoided.

I'll emphasise this in the email I'll be sending to the Court tomorrow morning. Other threads on here have mentioned asking the Judge to make a decision in the absence of the Defendant based on the Witness Statement and other supporting evidence, so I'll ask if that's an option, too. I'm obviously not going to go grovelling to the Claimant about this, and I certainly won't be paying the Court a fee for its own sluggishness until I've exhausted all other options.

Coupon-mad

You can't do this by email to the court. You have two ways forward (one free, one not) and I explained what those two options are.

You will lose if you let them present a case in your absence.  They'll walk all over your case, especially as it's Chelmsford Retail Park (decided already in the Supreme Court so you already have an uphill struggle).