DCBL CCJ letter

dougbrig24

Hello 

I’ve read very similar scenarios but none that quite match my circumstances so hoping for some help!! 

We’ve received a letter from DCBL stating we have an outstanding CCJ for a debt of £300 odd pounds, absolutely no clue where it has come from as no details as to what the debt is etc etc. Client is civil enforcement ltd, and if you read the reviews they are shocking to get hold of. We can’t ring as it asks for a PCN code which we have no knowledge on.. long story short we have rung DCBL who have confirmed it’s for a parking ticket from 12.6.22! 

The letters for this ticket have been going to a previous address, which was sold at the end of May 22. The car was sold at the end of June 22 so v5 was not updated for the short window, but either way it has been impossible for the parking letters to have been opened as no access to that address in June and no correspondence has been forwarded to the right address until now! 

Surely if they have managed to find our current address to notify an outstanding CCJ they should have been able to notify us back in April 24 when it was apparently issued?? 

We have no idea who to ring and talk to, as the ‘client’ is known to be a nightmare to get hold of and DCBL don’t get involved in disputes.

We’ve checked the credit report and can see a CCJ on there now - so currently very confused

Gr1pr

Study the setting aside a CCJ advice in the newbies sticky thread in announcements at the top of the forum, probably 6 down from the top 

Read a dozen recent CCJ threads from this year, study what they did and why 

Prompt action is paramount, no wasting time, a set aside costs about £303, especially if the paperwork was incorrectly served to an old address, when CEL should have spent maybe 29p looking up a current address for the service of papers 

You have a lot of research and work to do in order to sort this mess out 

Coupon-mad

Costs £303 that you can get back, just to clarify. The C is at fault and has improperly served the claim.

The CCJ thread by @Zbubuman is the one with the best case law to argue this.

1505grandad

A heads-up  -  when following the above thread bear in mind that the claimant (UK Car Park Management Limited) is an IPC AoS member whereas your claimant ( civil enforcement ltd,) is a BPA  AoS member. You should therefore amend any reference relating to IPC CoP to the relevant BPA CoP clauses.

dougbrig24

Thanks all - I have drafted the below letter from the thread @troublemaker22

URGENT

Dear Sirs,

CIVIL ENFORCEMENT LTD (THE ‘CLAIMANT’)  V [XXXXXXX] CLAIM REFERENCE [XXXXXX]

On 20th August 2024, I received the attached letter dated 13th August 2024 from Direct Collections Bailiffs Limited (‘DCBL’). This came as a tremendous shock as it is the first and only communication I have received from the Claimant or any organisation representing the Claimant in relation to this claim.   

I made immediate enquiries of the CNBC from which I was able to establish that:

1.       the claim relates to an alleged parking event in June 2022;

2.       the claim form was sent to an old address at which I no longer reside; and

3.       if I had been given the opportunity to do so, I would have successfully defended the claim.

I did not receive any pre-claim correspondence, not even a letter of claim as required by the PAP. Nor did I receive the claim form or any particulars of claim and was thus deprived of the ability to defend the claim. The Claimant is well aware that people move home from time to time. They also know that I did not respond to any communications sent to me at my old address.

This situation is explicitly dealt with in the Civil Procedure Rules which provide at CPR 6.9(3):

 (3) Where a claimant has reason to believe that the address of the defendant … is an address at which the defendant no longer resides or carries on business, the claimant must take reasonable steps to ascertain the address of the defendant’s current residence or place of business (‘current address’).

The Claimant is a member of the British Parking Association (the ‘BPA’) and is bound by the BPA’s Code of Practice which gives voice to CPR 6.9(3) in the following terms:

 24.1c Before serving a Letter Before Claim and prior to the issue of proceedings, Operators must, if no responses have been received to the NTD/NTK/reminder letters, take reasonable endeavours to ensure that the contact details for the person you are writing to are correct.

 If the Claimant had taken the actions required by the Civil Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice, my current address would have been found easily, which is obviously what DCBL did before sending their letter dated 13/08/2024.  If those actions had been performed at the correct time rather than after judgment, I would not have been deprived of the ability to defend the claim.

By reason of the Claimant’s breach of the Civil Procedure Rules, which amounts to an abuse of the process of the Court, the claim form was never properly served and the judgment must be set aside at the Claimant’s expense and the claim dismissed because it is now too late for the particulars of claim to be re-served.

In view of the foregoing, I invite the Claimant to join with me in an application to set aside the judgment and dismiss the claim, with the Claimant paying the court fee and no order as to costs.

Please respond to the above offer as soon as possible so that, if the offer is acceptable to the Claimant, we can work together to right the wrong that the Claimant has done to me.

To give you a reasonable time to take instructions and for us to agree a suite of documents for the Court, I am willing to defer making a unilateral application to set aside the judgment until 4 pm on 20th September 2024. If a joint application has not been made by that time, I intend to instruct a solicitor to apply to the Court unilaterally for an order setting the judgment aside, striking out the particulars of claim, dismissing the claim and awarding costs against the Claimant on a full indemnity basis.

Pease respond by immediate return.

Yours faithfully,

I am sending this to both Civil Enforcement LTD & DCBL as I am unsure who they have used as their solicitors. From what I have read DCBL will do a generic response chasing payment and Civil Enforcement will either respond or counter offer with a deal of a lower amount which I can understand I say NO to. 

In the meantime I am going to prep a N244 form in anticipation and I gather I need to do a witness statement? 

Hopeful I am starting to understands the threads as I go along, I am due a baby in two weeks so trying to get my head round it before baby arrives! 

Thanks!! 

Coupon-mad

Does the claim number have KF in it? If so it was filed by DCB Legal and you need to address this to them (not DCB Ltd).

If the claim number contains 'GM' then Civil Enforcement filed it in-house and you must deal only with them.

IN BOTH CASES: Ignore DCB Ltd.

dougbrig24

yes it does have a GM in it, so I will send the above to civil enforcement ltd only! 

dougbrig24

Civil enforcement have responded with the below letter 

*We refer to your email received 06/09/2024.

We note that you require us to set aside the CCJ at our own cost. Unfortunately, your actions have resulted in the CCJ being entered. We are willing to consent to the CCJ being set aside by consent, however you must bear the costs of the filing fee for this, on the following basis.

Following the date of violation, the DVLA provided us with your address of 'XXXXXXX', which is where all correspondence was sent to. As you are no doubt aware, pursuant to s18 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, it is the motorist's duty to ensure that the DVLA is immediately informed of any change of address.

Numerous notices, reminders, debt recovery reminders, letters (including a letter before action and a reminder) and ultimately the claim form were sent to you at the address provided to us by the DVLA as your registered keeper address.

An address check was conducted before issuing a claim by our debt resolution partner and they have confirmed the same address we hold on the system, therefore, we have complied with the CPR rule and the BPA code of practice.

Given that no response was filed to the claim form, a County Court Judgment was obtained against you in default on 19/04/2024.

Notwithstanding the above, we are prepared to accept a significantly reduced sum of £95 to settle this PCN. However, this will not remove your Judgment, but rather mark it as satisfied and remain on your record for 6 years.

Should you wish for a chance at having your Judgment removed, you will need to make an application with the Civil National Business Centre.

The Civil Procedure Rules permit the Court to set aside a CCJ in certain circumstances, such as where there is a good reason that the Judgment should be set aside - for example, this could be where the claim was issued at your previous address which was registered with the DVLA at the time of the parking violation.

The Court fee for a formal application to set aside Judgment is £303.00. However, to assist you in reducing costs, if €95 is made for the PCN, we would be willing to agree to set aside the Judgment and provide you with a Draft Consent Order, which will only cost £119.00 to file at Court. This process. usually means that the Judgment is set aside quickly (within 2-4 weeks of filing the application) and without the need to attend a hearing before a Judge. The draft Consent Order will contain three simple terms:

• The Judgment against you is set aside immediately (and therefore removed from your Court/Credit record)

: The smo Orist sou is discontinued; and

As stated above, the Court will usually only set aside Judgment (even by consent) if there are reasonable grounds for doing so. We therefore cannot guarantee our Draft Consent Order will assist you in setting aside the CCJ, but it does offer the quickest and most costs effective way of applying to have the Judgment set aside.

Please let us know your thoughts on the above offer. Should you not agree to this offer, you are at liberty to make a formal application with the Court.*

I’m right in thinking we ignore this request and move forward with getting it heard by a judge, my partner (who’s fine it’s for) is going to email DVLA for confirmation when the V5 was changed over as I know they are trying to scare mong us into thinking we would be in further trouble for not updating the V5 

any help appreciated!  

KeithP

dougbrig24 said:

...my partner (who’s fine it’s for) is going to email DVLA for confirmation when the V5 was changed over...

You already have that information.   

Look at the vehicle's Registration Document (V5c).

Look for the Doc Ref number. There is a date following it.

On my V5c it's at the bottom of the second page in a box headed "Official use only. Do not write in this space".

The first line format is an eleven digit Document Reference Number followed by a dd mm yy date.

That is the date that your V5c was last updated.

Castle

KeithP said:

dougbrig24 said:

...my partner (who’s fine it’s for) is going to email DVLA for confirmation when the V5 was changed over...

You already have that information.   

Look at the vehicle's Registration Document (V5c).

Look for the Doc Ref number. There is a date following it.

On my V5c it's at the bottom of the second page in a box headed "Official use only. Do not write in this space".

The first line format is an eleven digit Document Reference Number followed by a dd mm yy date.

That is the date that your V5c was last updated.

According to the OP's first post the vehicle was sold less than 3 weeks after the parking event.

KeithP

Castle said:

KeithP said:

dougbrig24 said:

...my partner (who’s fine it’s for) is going to email DVLA for confirmation when the V5 was changed over...

You already have that information.   

Look at the vehicle's Registration Document (V5c).

Look for the Doc Ref number. There is a date following it.

On my V5c it's at the bottom of the second page in a box headed "Official use only. Do not write in this space".

The first line format is an eleven digit Document Reference Number followed by a dd mm yy date.

That is the date that your V5c was last updated.

According to the OP's first post the vehicle was sold less than 3 weeks after the parking event.

Ah sorry. I missed that.