Judgment issued in default for private pcn

dk007

Hello Experts,

I have received a judgement issued in default for private pcn. There was a claim issued to me on 28th May 2025 which I acknowledged to within the deadline but completely forgot to submit my defense within the 33 days or so and I have now received a default judgement for Claimant (DCB legal for Euro Car parks) dated 3rd July which I happened to see just today 16th August 2025.  This correspondence was received at one of my rented property and I only get to pick up the post once in 1-2 months time. They should not have used this address to sent the communication at all.

Please could you advise what should i be doing now as i am also worried now that they might pass the file to credit reference agencies affecting my credit score. 

Would i be able to request court to allow me to submit my defense and what is the process for that, the judgement does mention that if I did not reply to the claim form and think judgement was entered wrongly then i can apply to court by filling a form and submitted some fees.

Urgent help would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks

Gr1pr

I doubt that you can get it set aside because the claim was correctly served to your known address, correctly acknowledged by you , confirming receipt andtheaddress, but you failed the defence submission deadline, 33 days from the issue date, so it could be a waste of £313 ( typo, edited  ) if you did try for a contested set aside 

It is also too late to pay it to avoid it being recorded on your credit file, so it will change your credit score, probably already has, you get a month at most to pay it in full, which expired 2 weeks ago, affecting you for 6 years 

Umkomaas

This correspondence was received at one of my rented property and I only get to pick up the post once in 1-2 months time. They should not have used this address to sent the communication at all. 

Did you write to them to confirm the address you required them to write to?  You were given advice on doing this in one of your previous threads (below). You would need to do it for each of your outstanding parking cases - which you do seem to rack up with some regularity, perhaps needing to have another look at parking strategies. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6570076/court-claim-from-dcb-legal-for-parking-in-a-disabled-bay-without-displaying-a-disable-badge-in-hayes#latest

troublemaker22

Gr1pr said:

I doubt that you can get it set aside because the claim was correctly served to your known address, correctly acknowledged by you , confirming receipt andtheaddress, but you failed the defence submission deadline, 33 days from the issue date, so it could be a waste of £303 if you did try for a contested set aside 

It is also too late to pay it to avoid it being recorded on your credit file, so it will change your credit score, probably already has, you get a month at most to pay it in full, which expired 2 weeks ago, affecting you for 6 years 

I respectfully disagree. A motorist who misses the deadline for filing a defence can often convince a court to set the judgment aside if they have a good defence to the underlying claim and should be given another chance to defend themselves. 

Furthermore, it might not be necessary to pay the full £313 (not £303) court fee. DCB Legal and ECP will often agree to consent to a joint application (where the court fee is £123) in an appropriate case - the precise economics depending on the strength of the defence. If DCB Legal unreasonably refuses to join in an application for a consent order and the motorist pays the higher court fee and gets the CCJ set aside, it is possible to get the court to order the claimant to reimburse the excess fee paid by the motorist, which is why DCB Legal and ECP often agree to cooperate in a consent application. 

Gr1pr

No problem,  it's always a tricky subject but having read your detailed reply then it's clear that it's a possibility,  depending on several factors,  judge bingo, details about the incident,  no 2 cases are the same etc

Yes it is possible to try the with consent route 

I fixed my typo re cost too

To sum up, this is why we volunteers need help from a few legal experts like yourself for complicated or legal matters, because the OP has a legal problem,  not a private pcn problem,  so thank you 

dk007

Umkomaas said:

This correspondence was received at one of my rented property and I only get to pick up the post once in 1-2 months time. They should not have used this address to sent the communication at all. 

Did you write to them to confirm the address you required them to write to?  You were given advice on doing this in one of your previous threads (below). You would need to do it for each of your outstanding parking cases - which you do seem to rack up with some regularity, perhaps needing to have another look at parking strategies. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6570076/court-claim-from-dcb-legal-for-parking-in-a-disabled-bay-without-displaying-a-disable-badge-in-hayes#latest

Hi, thanks for your reply. I did inform court in one of my other cases about change of address but I may not have told dcb legal. Are they not legally bound to send the letters at the address where the vehicle is registered to as using any address they might have from the past can easily cause such issues without defendant's knowledge.

dk007

troublemaker22 said:

Gr1pr said:

I doubt that you can get it set aside because the claim was correctly served to your known address, correctly acknowledged by you , confirming receipt andtheaddress, but you failed the defence submission deadline, 33 days from the issue date, so it could be a waste of £303 if you did try for a contested set aside 

It is also too late to pay it to avoid it being recorded on your credit file, so it will change your credit score, probably already has, you get a month at most to pay it in full, which expired 2 weeks ago, affecting you for 6 years 

I respectfully disagree. A motorist who misses the deadline for filing a defence can often convince a court to set the judgment aside if they have a good defence to the underlying claim and should be given another chance to defend themselves. 

Furthermore, it might not be necessary to pay the full £313 (not £303) court fee. DCB Legal and ECP will often agree to consent to a joint application (where the court fee is £123) in an appropriate case - the precise economics depending on the strength of the defence. If DCB Legal unreasonably refuses to join in an application for a consent order and the motorist pays the higher court fee and gets the CCJ set aside, it is possible to get the court to order the claimant to reimburse the excess fee paid by the motorist, which is why DCB Legal and ECP often agree to cooperate in a consent application. 

Hi, thanks for your reply on this.  Do i need to call the court and speak to someone about setting the judgement aside and what should be the reason. As it is nearly 6 weeks over now from the date on judgement,  what is best way to avoid entry on credit file. 

Coupon-mad

By following the 'set aside a CCJ' section in the NEWBIES thread but in your case (because you received, saw and acknowledged the claim) you'd have to tone down the angry approach of the suggested email asking for consent to set aside the CCJ. If you hadn't acknowledged it, the CCJ set aside would have been a shoo-in.

Half_way

Whos car park was this and why was a parking charge notice issued?
just to cover things, do not attempt to identify the driver

Umkomaas

dk007 said:

Umkomaas said:

This correspondence was received at one of my rented property and I only get to pick up the post once in 1-2 months time. They should not have used this address to sent the communication at all. 

Did you write to them to confirm the address you required them to write to?  You were given advice on doing this in one of your previous threads (below). You would need to do it for each of your outstanding parking cases - which you do seem to rack up with some regularity, perhaps needing to have another look at parking strategies. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6570076/court-claim-from-dcb-legal-for-parking-in-a-disabled-bay-without-displaying-a-disable-badge-in-hayes#latest

Hi, thanks for your reply. I did inform court in one of my other cases about change of address but I may not have told dcb legal. Are they not legally bound to send the letters at the address where the vehicle is registered to as using any address they might have from the past can easily cause such issues without defendant's knowledge.

They will use the address provided to them by the DVLA at the time of the specific parking event. They cannot go back to the DVLA to check for any updates.  It's up to you to do keep them updated. In your case, with a number of outstanding PCNs, even you informing DCB Legal of your current address for (say) PCN 'A', they will continue to write to your old address for PCN 'B'. 

There are no dots they will join for you.  Your individual cases will be dealt with electronically on a conveyor belt of tens of thousands of other cases that they are handling at any one time.  You must keep them informed in each and every case ... individually. 

dk007

Umkomaas said:

dk007 said:

Umkomaas said:

This correspondence was received at one of my rented property and I only get to pick up the post once in 1-2 months time. They should not have used this address to sent the communication at all. 

Did you write to them to confirm the address you required them to write to?  You were given advice on doing this in one of your previous threads (below). You would need to do it for each of your outstanding parking cases - which you do seem to rack up with some regularity, perhaps needing to have another look at parking strategies. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6570076/court-claim-from-dcb-legal-for-parking-in-a-disabled-bay-without-displaying-a-disable-badge-in-hayes#latest

Hi, thanks for your reply. I did inform court in one of my other cases about change of address but I may not have told dcb legal. Are they not legally bound to send the letters at the address where the vehicle is registered to as using any address they might have from the past can easily cause such issues without defendant's knowledge.

They will use the address provided to them by the DVLA at the time of the specific parking event. They cannot go back to the DVLA to check for any updates.  It's up to you to do keep them updated. In your case, with a number of outstanding PCNs, even you informing DCB Legal of your current address for (say) PCN 'A', they will continue to write to your old address for PCN 'B'. 

There are no dots they will join for you.  Your individual cases will be dealt with electronically on a conveyor belt of tens of thousands of other cases that they are handling at any one time.  You must keep them informed in each and every case ... individually. 

Thanks for the update on this but i was never registered for DVLA at that address then how can they use that address, i had some bills in the past at that address but that is about it.