Parking fine 3 years later

cancer29

Good Morning all, 

I received a letter of claim from DCB Legal in Dec 2024 on behalf of Civil Enforcement limited for a parking fine amounting to 170£ dating back to my car being parked on a private land and the issue date being June 2021. As the fine date was 3 years back and as I moved to a different address in December 2021 I decided to ignore this letter but now I have a Claim form from County court for a total sum of 306.28£, dated 22 Jan2025, I have sent the AOS which now gives me till Monday to get my defence. I have been dragging my heels till now due to personal health issues, work and having a busy 3 year old. 

I have gone back to site where they claim I had parked and it happens to be car park by Co Op where if you enter your registration in the shop you would get a 2 hour free time. I can only remember a few times that I have shopped in that Co Op and those few times I have always put in my registration details. I even enquired with the manager of the shop but unfortunately they don't have any 3 year old data at present. I can vaguely remember receiving a letter for debt collection when I was in previous address 3 years back but ignored it and haven't received any letters since moving to the new address but for the DCB letter in December.

I would be grateful for your help and expertise guiding me with the defence for this given the short duration I have. Could I use the lack of data Co Op has on the registration details on their system to prove that I could have entered my registration to avail free parking while shopping there and as such there is no grounds for a claim or is this not a valid argument?

Thanks for your help in advance.

cancer29

Hi 
with regards to the above post, I sent the AOS by post on the 31st of January and assumed the end date would be monday, is this correct

KeithP

cancer29 said:

I have a Claim form from County court for a total sum of 306.28£, dated 22 Jan2025, I have sent the AOS which now gives me till Monday to get my defence.

cancer29 said:

I sent the AOS by post on the 31st of January and assumed the end date would be Monday, is this correct

You are right with your Defence filing deadline, but there might be something useful here...

With a Claim Issue Date of 22nd January, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service('AOS') in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 24th February 2025 to file a Defence.

That's just a few days away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence but please don't leave it to the last minute.

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 AOS has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

cancer29

Thank you KeithP, I just want to clarify some points please. Do I mention in the defence that the said parking area has a 2 hour free permit if you register the no of the car with Co op shop and the fact that I cant remember or prove if the no was registered with Co op as I cant recollect something that happened 3 years back nor can I collect any evidence of this from Co op or do I leave it to the witness statement when it comes to that?

Gr1pr

You should address the POC I'm paragraph 3 and add an ending to paragraph 2

Leave the rest until the WS, plus maybe add an extra 3.1 paragraph with some brief statement 

Check that date in the POC,  is it incorrect,  it usually is  ?

cancer29

Hi Gr1pr, sorry for being ignorant, what is a POC? and as for checking the dates, I have only received a letter of claim from DCB legal on dec2024, the said parking date on site is something I cant confirm or refer to as it was 3 years back.

Gr1pr

POC = Particulars of Claim,  bottom lower left of the claim form 

The POC will say issue date and a date back then,  3 years ago,  probably the actual incident date,  not the actual issue date,  same as in scores of other claims on here by dcb legal,  so incorrect,  so use paragraph 3 as seen in the other recent cases

cancer29

Thank you Gr1pr, the POC states the PCN(s) was issued on June 2021 and this date was the same on the letter of claim. Given the length of time I have no way to clarify the exact day of the actual parking on the said site. Could you please point me to the recent cases you are inferring to 

Le_Kirk

Probably best if you can post a picture of your claim form (redacted of personal information) but leave dates, then we can judge if the defence that @Gr1pr is referring to is the one for you.

cancer29

Thank you Le_Kirk, I have posted the pic of the claim form 

Gr1pr

cancer29 said:

Thank you Gr1pr, the POC states the PCN(s) was issued on June 2021 and this date was the same on the letter of claim. Given the length of time I have no way to clarify the exact day of the actual parking on the said site. Could you please point me to the recent cases you are inferring to 

was a windscreen pcn issued on the day, or just a postal pcn several days later ?

if its the latter, that POC date was the incident date and not the issue date

there are plenty of recent examples on here of the numbered rebuttal for paragraph 3, please read a dozen