Directions Questionnaire

Mikeh2001

Hello, thanks to the help of this forum I am in the process of defending an unfounded and egregious claim from UKPC.

This far I used pretty much standard defense.  As I understand its pretty much the norm from the particulars of the claim there is little known information is respect of what contractual conditions have been breached etc (aka apparent breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7)

As expected UKPC have sent me their N180 and the court have asked the same from me which I plan to serve copies to them and the claimant this week.  I have two questions:

1) In the letter from the court it says its a defended claim but there is no copy of the defense from the claimant.  The words saying that is enclosed is literally deleted from the letter with pen by hand.  Why are not providing this to me? Its not clear to me why I should be expected to provide directions when I don't know what I am defending.  Is this the correct procedure?

2) After submitting my original defence in April I received a letter saying that the claimant must contact the court within 28 days otherwise the claim will be stayed.  I heard nothing so I sent an email to CCBC  - 5 days later MCOL updated to say "Case Stay Lifted on 20/07/2023".  Based on the limited information from the claimant and the court I am confused why the stay was in place anyway and I dont have evidence that the claimant has submitted a defense (see above) or did indeed contact the court within 28 days.  Questions: Why was it "stayed" in their system from April until July? Should I seek evidence / assurance they did what they should have or does this procedural aspect not even matter?  Just seems odd that it took 3 months for CCBC to issue the DQ despite saying the claimant only had 28 days but maybe this is totally normal.

Thank you for all the support here anyway. No doubt I will be in touch again at the WS stage if it gets that far! 

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

The Claimant does not provide a Defence just the Defendant does that.  The Claimant states their case in the Particulars of Claim. As you have noted the the POC are poor.
Who is the Claimant?

The CCBC are well behind with their processing - two months or more. Not unusual.

Also, you might find this thread useful - New Questions on the N180 Form.

Mikeh2001

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

The Claimant does not provide a Defence just the Defendant does that.  The Claimant states their case in the Particulars of Claim. As you have noted the the POC are poor.
Who is the Claimant?

The CCBC are well behind with their processing - two months or more. Not unusual.

Also, you might find this thread useful - New Questions on the N180 Form.

Thank you for the guidance and the link.  Claimant is the usual suspects: UK Parking Control.via. DCB legal.

From the claim all I know is I have a "parking charge" for "parking in breach of the Terms on the claimants signs".  On balance I don't feel this is enough information for me to know if I should be seeking witnesses or suggesting if I need expert evidence or otherwise.  Is that just me? Guess I am just curious at this point how I am expected provide directions and defend the case in the future (if I need to) based on so little information - or is down to me to push the claimant for that via SAR request whatever?

In the end I will just follow the process, play the game and hope justice to prevail

KeithP

Mikeh2001 said:

From the claim all I know is I have a "parking charge" for "parking in breach of the Terms on the claimants signs".  On balance I don't feel this is enough information for me to know if I should be seeking witnesses or suggesting if I need expert evidence or otherwise.  Is that just me? Guess I am just curious at this point how I am expected provide directions and defend the case in the future (if I need to) based on so little information - or is down to me to push the claimant for that via SAR request whatever?

In the end I will just follow the process, play the game and hope justice to prevail

Current thinking is not to send a SAR until after a Defence has been filed.
The reasoning being that you only need to defend yourself against what has been stated in the Particulars of Claim.
If the Particulars are not specific enough to clearly state what the Defendant has done wrong, then that is a failing of the Claimant.
It's the Claimant's job to state their claim - not the Defendant's job to ask them to clarify.

Le_Kirk

If you are talking about N180 - DQ - then YOU must have filed a defence and, if you used our template, you will likely have been/are following the 12 step procedure from the template defence thread, which explains all about the DQ process and then don't forget, when you receive your Notice of Allocation and a date for a hearing, you will need to submit your witness statement and evidence that backs up and supports your defence.

B789

Which defence did you file? The bog standard 2022 updated defence or the one by Johny86 which includes extra paragraphs to cover the woefully inadequate PoC filed by DCB Legal and signed by Yasmin Mia?