Counter claim dismissed - what's worth doing from here?

Portpatrick111

I received a PCN in April 2024 for parking 16 minutes without paying (with video evidence of the app not working on my phone). I went through the Ombudsman process and was willing to go to court. When the papers came through, I decided to submit a counter-claim of £250 for the time and difficulty caused by the whole process. I paid £35 for the counter-claim.
The parking company then offered to drop their case - I said if they paid me £100 plus the £35 costs I'd settle - they declined. The court case was due to take place Monday 18/05, and yesterday I received an email from the Small Claims Court that it would not be proceeding because the claimant had not paid their court fee. That leaves me £35 out of pocket and frustrated. I do not understand how the court can take my money for a counter-claim and then cancel the case.
My options seem to be
1. leave it and write it off as experience
2. ask for a refund from the court
3. take the parking company to court for compensation off my own bat. (The downside to this is that whilst I have some evidence, I disposed of a lot of the correspondence I received, because there was about 12 months when nothing happened, and I hoped that they'd dropped things).
Any thoughts on other options and which would be most sensible/ workable? Many thanks

Gr1pr

Name the private parking company claimant involved and the lawyers

The court did not take your counter claim £35 payment, the CNBC took it ( the CNBC is not a court. )

At that point both parties paid the CNBC their £35, claim and counter claim

Your local civil court require at least one of the 2 parties to pay the £27 court fee for the hearing, but neither side have actually paid it yet

No payment, no hearing

Bazarius

On the face of what you are saying - there is no legal basis of “time and difficulty caused by the whole process” to sue for such thing. People have to put up with some annoyance and time spent dealing with the parking company .

You paid the £35 counterclaim filing fee therefore your counterclaim is still live unless the court orders otherwise. You are not out of pocket .

Did you receive the Claimant’s defence to to the counter claim ? If so you should have informed the court of your intention to proceed with the counterclaim because you don’t accept their defence .

Did you receive a notice of discontinuance from the claimant ?
If not then the claimant pays the £27 trial fee as per court directions sent to both parties ..

if you did , were you ordered to pay the trial fee instead ?

Post up the court directions with all private details covered up .

(it might still survive …..)

Coupon-mad

You could (but with the caveat below) complain to the local court that they have overlooked the live counterclaim, which has not been discontinued. Ask why they missed it and failed to afford you the opportunity to pay the hearing fee, and what will they do to put this error right?

However, do you even have a cause of action? Sadly, we aren't convinced you do.

Nobody advises any poster to put in a (what sounds like half-baked?) counterclaim for 'time and difficulty'. That's doomed I'm afraid.

If it was a thing, then the NEWBIES thread and Template Defence thread would excitedly say so.

You'll have noticed those threads don't.

People are generally wasting their money if they try a CC with no legal basis. In most cases there is no cause to seek a financial remedy.

If you really believe you did plead it properly based on a relevant rule of law, then do insist on paying the £27 hearing fee.

Portpatrick111

Thanks all for the helpful advice, the suggestions are really appreciated. It is so helpful to have such detailed responses within days of asking a question like this. I will follow up with CNBC to ask the questions that Bazarius suggested, although without much hope of any positive results.

Car1980

I suspect it would have been dismissed anyway as you just counterclaimed for costs, which are limited on the small claims track by design, but still awardable if you submit them with your witness statement. Otherwise everybody would counterclaim to try and circumvent.