HELP NEEDED! Received County Court Claim Mail Sent to Wrong Address

JM0809198 · 28 September 2017 at 2:26PM

Hello there!

To begin with I have received a number of debt recovery letters and a LBCC (from Gladstones on behalf of UKCPM) to an address that I no longer reside at, although I know the person currently living at the property so I've been kept informed. Its now got to the stage where I've recieved a county court claim as I wrongly ignored the LBCC. I know that I'll probably be referred to the NEWBIE #2 thread (If I still have a chance to fight this) but I just wanted to know what steps I should take beforehand, shall I call the UKCPM as the registered keeper of the vehicle and state that the post they've been sending out has been sent to the wrong address?

secondly, I'm quite baffled that I have even recieved debt recovery letters as there has never been a ticket on my car and I never recieved the NTK letter. I called UKCPM and they stated that the letters were sent out and that they would send me proof that the charge was a valid one but I havent received any evidence.

Apologies if this sounds ridiculous and has already been covered, I just want to make sure that I make the correct choices from now onwards (having messed up already!) so would appreciate the advice!

Many thanks

nosferatu1001 · 28 September 2017 at 3:02PM

Well firstly now you HAVE the form, are you in time to acknowledge it?

If you can do so, do it. NOW. Online. No dealy, and at the same time - tell us the issue date. Once AOS is done, you have 33 days from that date for the court to have RECEIVED your printed, signed, scanned and emailed defence.

How long ago was the alleged event? it says on the claim form. If you are outside of the 14+5 day AOS, call the court, see if a default judgement has been applied for. If it has you will likely need to appluy to set aside the judgement on the gorunds that the forms were not correctly served on you. This costs £255. So as you can imagine, the more details we have, the better

Even if you can work it out, do NOT tell ANYONE who drove. Thi is vital. At MOST they are called "the driver".

JM0809198 · 28 September 2017 at 4:51PM

Thank you for the swift reply!

Apologies the issue date for the county court claim was on the 22/09/17 and the the parking charge date was on 03/01/2017. They are charging me £240.90 (amount claimed - £165.90, court fee - £25 and legal representative's costs - £50).

Shall I inform UKCPM of my change of address? all the documentation I have received from them has been sent to my old address.

Also I've had a browse on past cases but is there one that deals specifically with 'no parking outside of a marked bay' charges. I haven't seen any photographic evidence from UKCPM so I'm not sure if they are penalising me for parking outside of the markings (which aren't entirely clear) or for parking in another residents designated parking bay.

Quentin · 28 September 2017 at 5:34PM

Go to the Newbies faq thread near the top of the forum

There you will find advice on dealing with a court claim, including a link to a walkthrough on how to send your acknowledgement.

Do this now to get an extra 14 days to construct your defence.

The FAQ has lots of advice on defences.

Come back with your draft defence for comments

You do need to make sure that ukcpm and the court has your correct address

Coupon-mad · 28 September 2017 at 8:09PM

Shall I inform UKCPM of my change of address? all the documentation I have received from them has been sent to my old address.

Well no, because you will be filing a defence which will be sent to their solicitors, Gladstones, and obviously you can use that to mention your new address, before launching into the usual defence wording we tend to use v Gladstones.

Also I've had a browse on past cases but is there one that deals specifically with 'no parking outside of a marked bay' charges.

So stop looking for that (of course there are tons of such defences on this forum, all won, just not all linked in the Sticky thread or people would die of boredom or give up reading it). You've presumably searched the forum, must have found some defences about being parked 'out of bay' or in a 'restricted area'. I can even remember one or two like that from last month, they are so common, and we win.

But more importantly, you appear to have been penalised in your own residential location, so obviously the example to adapt will be Johnersh's ''own space'' defence, based on what you've said:

I'm not sure if they are penalising me for parking outside of the markings (which aren't entirely clear) or for parking in another residents designated parking bay.

What does your lease say about parking, or permits, or parking charges of £100?

Are you a tenant or a flat owner?

What did the bumf say that the permit came with?

JM0809198 · 29 September 2017 at 1:10AM

Thank you Quentin I'll be sure to do that..

Thanks for the advice CM, I should have done a more thorough search.

At the time of the alleged breach I wasn't a tenant (I'm a tenant now) but I had a permit which was handed to me by the tenant at the time (its a residential car park).

Also regarding the lease it doesn't really mention much in relation to parking as there was no one managing the car park at the time the lease was provided, it only mentions 'we may need to make and enforce regulations on those parking areas from time to time and will tell you about them'. I did ask for the contract that they have with UKCPM to be emailed over to me to which the phone operator replied he would get someone to get in touch with me (err do you want my email address)...doubt I'll get anything to be honest.

I did recently attempt to get the landowners to cancel the charges but to no avail, they were most unhelpful and stated 'there's nothing we can do as we've handed it over to UKCPM to manage so you will have to speak to them directly'.

Along with the aforementioned frustrations I have It isn't always possible to park within bayline markings, I recall numerous occasions where residents have parked outside of bay markings which then has a knock on effect on fellow residents who consequently can't park within their bays! especially if you need the extra room to get children out of your car etc, although I doubt this would hold any weight in a court of law.

I will attempt to put a defence together sometime tomorrow, I really appreciate all of the feedback given!

JM0809198 · 3 October 2017 at 7:50PM

I still haven't put together my draft defence but have doing a bit of research on the forum.

Just for reassurance purposes, will the fact that I havent responded to the LBC and other letters (never recieved NTK) work against me in court? I'm sure UKCPM will mention the lack of a response in court.

Coupon-mad · 3 October 2017 at 10:55PM

It might cause the Judge a fleeting moment of thought, but you just say that the letters had all the hallmarks of a scam and was just the sort of operation that has appeared on Watchdog, etc.

JM0809198 · 10 October 2017 at 12:24AM

Thanks CM!

Can anyone advise me as to what the main points of my argument should be.

I genuinely don't remember who was driving at the time. I know the parking permit scheme came into practice around a month before the apparent contravention (I had a valid permit displayed) . There was no lighting installed at the time either, as well as bay markings which aren't entirely clear, there is no signage at the entrance of the car park either (although it's a small residential car park with about 15 spaces) . I also have the issue of not receiving a notice to keeper letter and no ticket was placed on my car window...

[Deleted User] · 10 October 2017 at 9:27AM

Surprise! The claim form is sent to your old address when the pre-action correspondence has also been arriving there (and you decided not to tell them of your change of address)! :doh:

1. Write to Gladstones and the Court to confirm your new address for service

2. Regarding the defence you appear to have listed a number of relevant points. Permits may well be permissible given that the lease terms refer to possible enforcement/variation of parking terms.

However the issue sounds like a white line infringement rather than a failure to display the tenants permit, which was lent to you. If that is the case, ideally you're going to need the photos before you draft the defence. This is particularly important if, as you say, other cars parked awkwardly have pushed you out of the designated bay.

JM0809198 · 10 October 2017 at 7:51PM

Thanks Johnersh.

Yes I have informed them. I have a family member at my old address so I'm kept informed regarding any post I might recieve. Although I never at any point received a NTK (which is strange considering I wasn't given a window ticket)!

I will ask them to send me a photo of the contravention, would I admit that I'm the driver if there seems to be a valid reason for not parking wholly within the bay? Another issue I might have is if the adjacent car had moved when the photo was taken, if the contravention wasn't due to another car then I guess I have the argument of no lighting and inability to see the signage (due to lack of lighting and font size etc).

I know this might be a slightly silly question so please forgive me, but when you put your defence together with references to previous cases do you bring the whole document of a past case in with you (highlighting the parts you intend to use) or just the parts of the case you plan to use in your defence. (ie a few pages instead of 100 or so pages). And are most of the cases easily accessible online?

HELP NEEDED! Received County Court Claim Mail Sent to Wrong Address

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free