Defending Parking Debt Claim and recovering costs after successful set-aside

Somerset1990

Hi All,

Looking for some advice on my situation.

I received a default CCJ in Oct 24 for an unpaid debt to UK Parking Control related to a Sept 23 PCN which I did not receive correspondence for due to the use of the v5 address of vehicle which was not up-to-date at time I was alledgedgly breaking the parking rules - so initial PCN and all other paperwork was directed there. By the time I found out about the CCJ via DCB Bayliffs Ltd, the period to defend it or pay it without it going on record had expired, meaning I had to get it set aside to protect my credit history.

In my set aside order and witness statement and draft defence I put forward why the default judgement was incorrect as UK Parking Control should have made an attempt to search for my current address before requesting a CCJ, but the judge on the set-aside hearing didn't think that UK Parking Control could have found my current address and requested a CCJ order to that address as it would have been incorrect for them to serve to a different address to the one they had record of. Unfortunately I did not make a bigger point that they had 12 months before the CCJ to find me and save court time to get in touch with me at my current addres, something their agent did without too much difficulty AFTER the CCJ was issued.

Side note: I mentioned in my draft defence, that UKPC had issued a second PCN from Oct 23 to me for the same carpark but a different date, which went to the wrong address but then DCB Legal found me in Feb 24 and I responded to that and ultimately successfully appealed via email, due to having a valid reason and permission to park past 10pm, as I was using the gym where members get free parking outside of "normal hours", and timestamped log to provde this. I made this point in my draft defence to highlight that even if the v5 was wrong, and UKPC couldn't search again on DVLA, they could have found my address via another PCN they were chasing, but did not do this. I believe it is a tactic that they know the addresses they use are likely to be out of date after no reply but try to get through to a CCJ stage as this puts the most pressure on the defendant.

Judge also said that because I went ahead with a set aside without consent and didn't attempt to get a with consent order, that he thought the set aside cost was rightly mine to bear.

The reason I acted without trying to get a set aside with consent order, was because I was already aware the CCJ was nearly 3 months old and that the CPR rules are strict on acting promptly. I did think at the time it was a calculated risk worth taking to save my credit.

Ultimately the judge decided not to reserve costs to the claim hearing, meaning even if I win my case I won't get the £303 set aside costs or any expenses awarded back to me from UKPC. The positive part is that he did think my defence was strong and allowed the set-aside order under CPR 13.3.

Judge set 4 weeks as the deadline for the initial claim to be resubmitted and 2 weeks after this for me to submit my defence.

Assuming I successfully defend the claim, will I have another chance to request the set-aside costs (£303) be awarded from UKPC?

Secondly I would like to know if anyone has managed to claim costs including the set-aside fee back from a parking company when the judge did not award these directly in the set-aside hearing?

I am also half expecting either no re-submission of the claim now that UKPC have seen my draft-defence, or an offer to settle out of court which I think I would refuse as it's likely to cost more than winning and paying nothing (and potentially being awared my costs). Is there anything I need to be aware of so that my already incurred costs do not become unclaimable?

Lastly would like to generally thank the people who help on this forum as it's been very useful getting this far!

Cheers

Le_Kirk

What was the judge's decision re costs, you said "not reserved" but were costs denied or similarl? By what date must the PPC or their solicitor file a new claim? Quite often they will walk away if they think they are going to have costs against them but in this case they might go all the way.

Somerset1990

The judge said he would not reserve the costs and specifically awarded no costs in the set-aside hearing. 

As you say ukpc now have lower risk as my £303 for the set aside is not included in my defence costs by default from the judge as I understand - but my question after the set aside hearing was - will I have another opportunity to claim costs including the set aside if I make a stronger case for them in my defence.

I don’t think that UKPC would be smart to proceed as they are on weaker legal ground as no loss was caused as it was a free car park and I was using it within the agreement they have with the gym so that distinguishes the circumstance to Parking Eye vs Beavis.

Somerset1990

Date for claimant was 4 weeks so 18th March to submit claim

Coupon-mad

You can't get your costs now, sorry.

Johnersh

That is a bit harsh having expressly found that the claim was not served to the correct address. It is by no means certain the PPC would have consented or on terms that were acceptable. Lots of consent orders we see on here are offered subject to a preamble that the claim was correctly served - ie. One that defendants cannot sensibly agree. 

Frankly, inmho, if they serve a claim without complying with their CPR obligations, then they risk a set aside and the costs that flow from it.

Somerset1990

Thanks for replies all. I won’t hold too much hope of getting the set aside costs back in my defence then - obviously very annoying as the cost was higher than the alleged debt!

If I do take a separate small claim action it would be using the facts that the 1) CPR obligations weren’t correctly followed - zero attempt to get in contact me after no reply to initial correspondence before the CCJ order 2) Unfair/deceptive business practice from UKPC / DCB legal / DCBL as they knew my correct address from PCN #2 (contacted by DCB legal) and received response from me in Feb 24 but proceeded to issue warning letters to the wrong address for PCN #1 via separate solicitors (UKPC own litigation team). The fact they pursued two separate PCNs from different legal entities without reference to the other PCN was both confusing to deal with because no one could give a whole story of what was being claimed - even DCB Legal said they had no idea UKPC could issue their own debt collection / claim letters as they assumed they all went through to DCB legal /DCBL after going unpaid. 3) Generally operating a very badly signed 10pm limit carpark outside a 24 hour gym seems like a unfair/unscrupulous practice even if there are ways to validate your registration- I know dozens of people get caught out every year from gym managers comments. UKPC should/would have know this particular carpark gets loads of successful defences from gym users and should have known that taking it to a CCJ order was unfair for that reason…

If anyone has every had luck taking the small claim route would be good to know any other points I should target?

thanks

Coupon-mad

You wouldn't succeed because the matter of costs in this case is res judicata (Latin for "a matter judged").

Res judicata is a legal principle that prevents parties from re-litigating the same issue after a judgment has been made.

Your Judge got it wrong.

Somerset1990

Hi. I have submitted my defence to the ClaimResponses.CNBC@justice.gov.uk email address and the Claimants litigation inbox to the claim form below from UKPC below following the set aside order. I used the defence template similar to this post down to para 8 by (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6550834/ccj-set-aside-need-to-submit-defence-template-query) for PoC citing CHAN and AKANDE being very unclear in what terms and conditions were breached and not being able to formulate a fitting defence due to this. I did orginally write a longer defence but having read around the forum, it seemed like this would give too much information to the claimant to potential pick holes in at this stage and it seems I have other opportunities to give evidence and reasoning. I've kept hold of this longer defence and expect to use some of it in a witness statement/evidence bundle to show how poor the signage was and explain how the set up of the carpark is verging on willful negligence in my view.

Have I misunderstood the template and only submitted the initial section of the template defence? Should I have taken the longer version? It's unclear to me if the court will now only consider what is in the inital defence document I have sent or if I can submit more information? The only reason I do know more about the T+Cs referred to in the Claim is most likely refering to is because I received another PCN which I successfully appealed (DCB Legal informed me they wouldn't be pursuing it further at least) and the PCN would have been for the same reason, the the PoC doesn't explain this so I think CHAN and AKANDE defence should work?

Somerset1990

Just to follow up on previous comment - I have now directed my Defence to local court email address as CNBC told me on the phone they have passed the case on

Coupon-mad

...and copied in the C's solicitors like you were meant to? The judge didn't order you to send a defence to the CNBC admin centre in Northampton (they aren't involved after setting aside the CCJ).

He ordered you to file (to his court) and serve (to the C's solicitors) a defence.

Are you saying that you failed to use the Template Defence despite the fact the Chan & Akande version clearly tells you to use the rest of the Template?

You only submitted seven paragraphs? Oh dear. Show us.

I'm concerned you're going to struggle at your hearing, having already not got your costs when you should have done, then not followed the directions of your Judge and not followed our advice (nor even asked us).

You need to be much more up to speed to avoid being walked all over by their rep at the final hearing.