County Court Letter

Peach321

Hi,

My father recently received this letter from the County Court Business Centre. I have acknowledged that it has been received through the government portal.

It started as a fine from a private car park. The signage was not very clear. My father paid £1.50 cash for two hours, the ticket was printed and displayed. (There was no way of paying digitally or by app).
However, on return, an attendant was attaching a ticket to the windscreen.
On closer inspection, it seemed that the ticket printed was for one hour and not two hours. The parking fee for one hour was 80p and the machine had not dispensed any change. The said parking ticket ended at 11:27 and the ticket was apparently issued at 11:39 right as we approached the car.
I feel like this was not a fair parking ticket as we had paid the full amount for the time spent in the car park.

I have written a few lines in the defense box but I'm not sure if I have done correctly.

My father has never received such court letters/notifications and is quite upset, as am I. Can anyone help with a further course of action?

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

Stop filling in any forms - or 'the Defence box', whatever that is.

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Peach321

I filed an Acknowledgement of Service on the 13th of July. That was the same day we received the letter.

KeithP

Peach321 said:

I filed an Acknowledgement of Service on the 13th of July. That was the same day we received the letter.

By doing that so hastily you have reduced the time available to file a Defence by a few days but that can't now be helped.

With a Claim Issue Date of 11th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 13th July, you have until 4pm on Thursday 10th August 2023 to file a Defence.

That's over three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave the preparation of it to the last minute. However, you should leave the filing of it as late as possible.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

Although I have written 'you' or 'your', I do of course mean the named Defendant - your father.
I hope you filed the Acknowledgment of Service in his name.

Peach321

Thank you very much for your help, I will start preparing the defence as per your advice.

Coupon-mad

Peach321 said:

Thank you very much for your help, I will start preparing the defence as per your advice.

I hope the AOS was done in Dad's name and not yours?  Not YOUR Gatway Account?

You can do the legwork & research and can even help him and speak in court if it gets as far as a hearing, but nothing is done in your name.

AND:

There is now good reason to delay defence submission till close to/at your deadline (as long as you've done the AOS), Sorry if it might look conflicting with the usual advice "not to leave it till the last minute"!

It's because we are now in July and something big is coming.

Things are changing quickly this Summer in 'PPC World' and as you are now so close to the DLUHC's Announcement I would PREPARE the defence but hold off emailing it, wait and see (and of course diarise an alert for the date so your Dad doesn't actually miss his deadline).

Your timing is perfect if the DLUHC in their Draft Impact Assessment (due in a couple of weeks) give us all some damning words to add!

Can you get a photo the sign? How much did 2 hours really cost? £1.60?

It will help us to advise the Defendant while we wait and see what silver bullets the Government's imminent analysis and draft IA gives us.

B789

Peach321 said:

I have written a few lines in the defense box but I'm not sure if I have done correctly.

Just to clarify... when you say you "have written a few lines in the defense [sic] box" do you mean you intended to do so or did you actually do so and submit those "few lines"? It is very important that this is clarified.

Castle

KeithP said:

Peach321 said:

I filed an Acknowledgement of Service on the 13th of July. That was the same day we received the letter.

By doing that so hastily you have reduced the time available to file a Defence by a few days but that can't now be helped.

With a Claim Issue Date of 11th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 13th July, you have until 4pm on Thursday 19th August 2023 to file a Defence.

That's over three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave the preparation of it to the last minute. However, you should leave the filing of it as late as possible.

28 days takes you to Thursday 10th August 2023.

Coupon-mad

B789 said:

Peach321 said:

I have written a few lines in the defense box but I'm not sure if I have done correctly.

Just to clarify... when you say you "have written a few lines in the defense [sic] box" do you mean you intended to do so or did you actually do so and submit those "few lines"? It is very important that this is clarified.

This is vital to know.

We really hope you haven't hit 'start defence' on MCOL and submitted some words?

KeithP

Castle said:

KeithP said:

Peach321 said:

I filed an Acknowledgement of Service on the 13th of July. That was the same day we received the letter.

By doing that so hastily you have reduced the time available to file a Defence by a few days but that can't now be helped.

With a Claim Issue Date of 11th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 13th July, you have until 4pm on Thursday 19th August 2023 to file a Defence.

That's over three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave the preparation of it to the last minute. However, you should leave the filing of it as late as possible.

28 days takes you to Thursday 10th August 2023.

Oops... thanks. Looks like fat finger hit the wrong key.
I've now corrected my earlier post.

Peach321

 

My dad has just received this letter which means, unfortunately, those few words have been taken as defence.