Euro Car Parks CCJ from parking fine where machine out of service for months - next steps

travelgirl70

My partner had received a parking fine from Euro Car Parks for a car park in England where the machine was out of order for a couple of months and wrapped up in plastic bags. He has photos of dates before and after the alleged parking incident of the machine like this. There was no app pay for parking available at that time. The vehicle was shared with his ex so it is unclear who was driving as it was a while ago.

He wrongly ignored it but when he was told it was going to court he submitted the defence. He wrongly sent this to the legal firm DCB that  Euro Car Parks use instead of direct to the court. Instead of doing the decent thing and forwarding it to the court, DCB told him they had destroyed the documents! He was out of the country at the time they responded which he can prove. As soon as he returned he submitted defence against the parking fine and also why he had been late in responding.

However, he has now received a CCJ which looks like it was made before they had received the appeal. Obviously he could just suck up the fine to make it go away but it is now £500 for £2.50 worth of parking which he could not pay for.

The options appear to be: appeal CCJ which could cost over £300 and be unsuccessful, appeal to  Euro Car Parks or just pay it.

Does anyone have specific advice on dealing with DCB/Euro Car Parks and how we should proceed in this case?

Gr1pr

Please get the details righits Euro Car Parks , ECP  ( not Europarks. )

and 

DCB Legal LTD  ( not. DBJ. )

1505grandad

As above  -  there are other similarly named ppc's.

Euro Parking Collection Plc

Euro Parking Services Limited (Trading as Euro Parking Services Limited)

travelgirl70

1505grandad said:

As above  -  there are other similarly named ppc's.

Euro Parking Collection Plc

Euro Parking Services Limited (Trading as Euro Parking Services Limited)

I have asked for the thread to be edited hours ago. It is a shame that they do not allow posters to correct simple mistakes themselves.

Coupon-mad

travelgirl70 said:

I have asked for the thread to be edited hours ago. It is a shame that they do not allow posters to correct simple mistakes themselves.

They do, but only once you have made a few more posts and get the 'Forumite' status.

No worries for now.  And we all know it is Euro Car Parks anyway because DCB Legal act for them and not the other firm of similar name.

He wrongly ignored it but when he was told it was going to court he submitted the defence. He wrongly sent this to the legal firm DBJ that Europarks use instead of direct to the court. Instead of doing the decent thing and forwarding it to the court, DBJ told him they had destroyed the documents! He was out of the country at the time they responded which he can prove. As soon as he returned he submitted defence against the parking fine and also why he had been late in responding.

However, he has now received a CCJ...

OK, so he should apply to set the CCJ aside, describing the above sequence and stating that DCB Legal had no lawful reason to click the button to 'request judgment' given they HAD received a defence, and by their own admission, later destroyed it hoping the CCJ would just be paid.

Follow the process for setting aside a CCJ in the second post of the NEWBIES thread.   What he has described is 'wholly unreasonable conduct' by DCB Legal and he should also be arguing that so he is awarded his £303 back (refunded by the Claimant).  Their conduct is appalling.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part12

Meaning of ‘default judgment’

12.1 In these Rules, ‘default judgment’ means judgment without trial where a defendant—

(a) has failed to file an acknowledgment of service; or

(b) has failed to file a defence or any document intended to be a defence."

I would say it was clear that the document sent to DCB Legal was 'intended to be a defence' and whilst it wasn't filed via the court system, that defence was properly served to the acting Solicitors. They knew the case was defended.  It was improper to seek judgment, disingenuous even.

Article here about serving a defence wrongly:

https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2020/12/23/service-of-defence-by-email-not-good-service-relief-from-sanctions-required-to-set-aside-judgment-and-granted/

"The judgment of Mr Justice Calver in Ipsum Capital Ltd v Lyall & Ors [2020] EWHC 3508 (Comm) shows the dangers of serving documents by email. The judge held that service of a defence by email was not good service and a default judgment obtained was therefore regular. However the judgment was set aside on the grounds that there was an arguable defence and after considering the Denton test.  "

@Johnersh might be able to add some additional case law to support the view that the solicitors knew a defence was made and the CCJ must be set aside under these circumstances.

Johnersh

The letter of the law is that the claimant is not required to make the defendant aware of any error and that it may be obtained where there has been a failure to *file* (at court) rather than to *serve* (upon the defendant) so, yes, judgment is correctly entered, but it's not an attractive application by the claimant to defend.

The courts tend to be a bit more forgiving of late defences than late claim forms, so that's at least something.

So an application is needed to

(1) set aside the judgment addressing the fact that the claim is defensible
(2) Serve a late defence

Look at the Denton criteria.

It is IMPERATIVE that the defendant now acts promptly. Get an application in on Monday.

Coupon-mad

Thought you might say that!  I had that in the back of my mind: 'defence wasn't filed'.

But we agree: an urgent application is required to set aside the CCJ.

travelgirl70

Coupon-mad said:

Thought you might say that!  I had that in the back of my mind: 'defence wasn't filed'.

But we agree: an urgent application is required to set aside the CCJ.

Thanks again. With the option to pay in full now and, in effect, get rid of the CCJ, if we were to claim to set aside but lose, would the clock restart to be able to pay in full? We have only just received the CCJ letter, but we already have only two weeks left to pay within the 30-day limit.

Coupon-mad

if we were to claim to set aside but lose, would the clock restart to be able to pay in full?

No.