Parking Charge to pay or not to pay

Coupon-mad

I have no preference. It is equally valid just to completely ignore everything, except:

• if you move house
• if you receive a Claim Form

privateparkingpyle

Sure this is a legit approach?

I asked Claude:

'Is it worth betting on this?'

:

'Depends on the money and your risk tolerance, not on legal merit — you don't have any.
Discounted payment now: fixed, known, small cost. Done.
Bet (do nothing): most likely outcome is nothing happens or you get more letters you ignore. Small but real chance it escalates to a Claim Form, at which point you'd have no defence and face a CCJ risk plus increased costs (£60+ recovery fees, court fees) on top of the original charge.'

Am I really risking court fees and a CCJ here @Coupon-mad? If so, is that an issue? I don't want anything permanent or even temporarily detrimental on my credit file where I can avoid it but I really don't want to pay this either. Asking now as I'm fast nearing the '28 day deadline'

Car1980

Utter garbage.

You can only be issued a CCJ if you ignore a claim form OR it goes all the way to a hearing AND you lose AND you still fail to pay within 28 days after that. And parking companies don't even want CCJs - they want the cash!

As I said, I've never heard of this company making a court claim. The Trafford Centre is their biggest client. If they made claims you'd guarantee their victims would be clogging up the Manchester Evening News.

Claude has just done a Google search and discovered a lot of court claims from companies like Euro Car Parks (who, incidentally use bulk litigators DCB and always discontinue). I have about 40 letters from 5 parking companies clogging up my office drawer and I'm still waiting for a court claim from one of them!

See if you can find a court claim from this lot…

Coupon-mad

"Small but real chance it escalates to a Claim Form, at which point you'd have no defence and face a CCJ risk plus increased costs (£60+ recovery fees, court fees) on top of the original charge."

Tell Claude it is wrong and this answer is rubbish and pure scaremongering. The so-called 'recovery fee' is unrecoverable because the Supreme Court in ParkingEye v Beavis held that the PCN itself covered all enforcement costs. And there is no CCJ risked by defending a parking claim, 90% of which (if defended on any grounds) are discontinued before the hearing fee is due. Ask Claude to have a look at reputable sites such as MSE forum, and rethink and provide a proper reply.