DCB Legal - Court Claim

Ash_Man

Hi everyone. I'll try to keep it short. I parked in a private car park controlled by Park Maven Ltd back in July 2024. I input my reg and paid for the parking using the terminal located in the car park. I then received a parking charge notice come through claiming no valid session on this date, which I ignored. A couple of months later received a letter from DCBL (NOT DCB Legal) who requested immediate payment of outstanding balance. Ignored. Earlier this year received a letter before claim from DCB Legal shortly followed by a county claim form.

I submitted an appeal against the claim on the grounds that I had paid the original charge and mentioned that I had the evidence available by way of bank statement clearly showing the payment going out of my bank account. Annoyingly their terminals do not issue paper tickets. I hoped it would go away, but just today received an email from DCB Legal saying that the client wanted to pursue. I called them up to explain that I had evidence of payment, but their claim was that maybe the reg was input incorrectly and that the T&Cs state that there needs to be a valid reg input for the session to be valid.

They also mentioned that the client was open to settling for an amount of £180 as opposed to the full amount of £230.

My concern is whether their T&Cs are sufficient grounds for them to win in court. Any suggestions as to my next course of action? Is it worth settling now or just take it to court? Seek independent legal advice?

Thanks in advance!

Gr1pr

You dont appeal a court claim,  you will have defended the claim by submitting your defence to the CNBC in Northampton 

Presumably the next stages will be mediation and submitting your N180, so follow the advice in the 2nd post in the newbies sticky thread in announcements,  plus the 12 steps in the defence template thread,  first couple of posts 

Stick with the free advice on here,  we have seen many Parkmaven and DCB Legal cases 

Post a redacted picture of the POC on the lower left of the claim form after hiding the VRM details first in your reply 

Ash_Man

Gr1pr said:

You dont appeal a court claim,  you will have defended the claim by submitting your defence to the CNBC in Northampton 

Presumably the next stages will be mediation and submitting your N180, so follow the advice in the 2nd post in the newbies sticky thread in announcements,  plus the 12 steps in the defence template thread,  first couple of posts 

Stick with the free advice on here,  we have seen many Parkmaven and DCB Legal cases 

Post a redacted picture of the POC on the lower left of the claim form after hiding the VRM details first in your reply 

Yes that's correct sorry, I submitted a defense and NOT an appeal. Too late for that...

I had a quick look at the thread and was a little overwhelmed, but will take a proper look through the section you refer to a little later. Appreciate your guidance!

See POC below:

Gr1pr

What was the actual date of the incident shown on the NTK PCN letter   ?

I bet that the issue date on the NTK PCN letter was not the date shown in the POC above 

Ash_Man

Gr1pr said:

What was the actual date of the incident shown on the NTK PCN letter   ?

I bet that the issue date on the NTK PCN letter was not the date shown in the POC above 

Ah that's the thing, I never received the NTK but it was around the time I was updating my address on the V5c, and so the NTK went to my previous address and was then misplaced.

I assume it would be a silver bullet if it was found that those dates do not match up?

Gr1pr

Never assume anything in these cases

If it gets as far as a hearing,  the judge will decide on any mistakes or relevance,  or not

Coupon-mad

Did you use the Template Defence? What did paragraph 3 say (ONLY para 3 please).

Ash_Man

Coupon-mad said:

Did you use the Template Defence? What did paragraph 3 say (ONLY para 3 please).

Unfortunately I did not use a template defence. My defence is per below:

"I would like to dispute this claim as I

paid the original parking charge using the automated parking system Park Maven uses. However, due to their systems being inadequate for use, this was not logged, and therefore they are wasting all of our time by claiming that I hadn't paid. Their system also happens to not issue hard copy receipts. I tried to contact them multiple times to settle this matter but there is no way to contact them. I am happy to provide a bank statement clearly showing the payment leaving my account.

Unfortunately there is no way for me to attach anything to this form."

I realise this was likely not the best thought out response, but it was born out of pure frustration and I honestly felt like it was an open and shut case. Which it really SHOULD be!

Coupon-mad

OK, so just ask at Mediation phone call stage whether this is in fact about a typo keying error?