Have I missed the deadline to submit my defence

mikechia

Hi everyone,

I've reviewed all the existing threads and appreciate all the guidance and information I have read.

However, after submitting my AOS, I stupidly miscalculated the 28 day period I had available to me to submit my claim defence. (For some reason, I thought non-working days such as weekends and bank holidays weren't part of the count).

So now I need a little bit more advice. Have I definitely missed the window? Is there any point still submitting a defence today or tomorrow? What should I do?

The Issue Date of the Claim Form was 29 Feb 2024.
The AOS via MCOL website was on 09/03//24.

The claim is from DCP/Group Nexus.

nopcns

With an "Issue date" of 29th February, the day of service would be 5th March. Your AoS would have been needed to have been submitted by 4pm on Tuesday 19th March. If there AoS was submitted by that time, you would then have had until 4pm on Tuesday 2nd April to file your defence.

If you have missed either of these deadlines, you are very likely to have already received a CCJ by default. If you haven't, get your defence in, any defence, immediately.

The only time non-working days count is if the deadline date falls on one of those days, in which case it is the next working date that applies.

Coupon-mad

Clearly you are OK to do it tonight if MCOL doesn't say that a judgment has been entered.

In these circumstances use three quarters of the template defence (remove the Headings & Statement of Truth, plus the waffly bit about the IPC and remove the end but about costs: that can wait till WS stage).

Then - after adding your facts paragraphs where shown in the Template Defence - go against usual advice and put the reduced size defence in NOW using MCOL.

Get it in on MCOL (due to the lateness) and that blocks the Claimant from default judgment and you can sleep soundly tonight. 

mikechia

It looks like I'm a little too late, as I have logged in to MCOL to see "A judgement was issued against you" in the Claim History.

Missing this was nobody's fault except my own.

Are there any next steps you would suggest? Or just wait to receive it in the post, accept the loss, and close it out?

nopcns

Paying the CCJ within 30 days of judgment will expunge it from your credit record.

If the claim was served to the correct address, it will be extremely difficult to try and set aside under CPR 13.2. However, under CPR 13.3 you have the possibility of a discretionary set aside as you have a good chance of defending the claim. You would need a pretty good excuse to convince the judge as to why you failed to respond to the claim in time.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part13

Paying the CCJ is probably your cheapest bet. You don't want a CCJ, satisfied or not, on your file for the next 6 years. The financial pain will be huge.

It would cost you £275 to try to get the set aside without consent with no guarantee of it actually being successful and, if it was, you'd probably be back to where you were before the claim but £275 poorer and still having to context the PCN.

Trying to persuade the PPC to agree to a set aside with consent, which would cost you £108 but the PPC would never agree to it unless you also agreed to pay the CCJ amount.

Unless you could persuade the judge to set aside under CPR 13.3 and either strike the claim out or agree to reserve costs, it you wouldn't pay anything. However, this is the least likely option.

The Newbies/FAQ thread has a whole section on setting aside CCJs