My partner has a CCJ against her which we found out about when applying for a mortgage recently.

The CCJ was created by Vehicle Control Services Ltd. PCN at St Andrews Retail Park because she alledgedly parked incorrectly or for too long.

We still don't know which.

She changed address a month after the parking occurred in November 2014.

She didn't receive a ticket at the time (in fact we think she was in her shop at the time of the 'incident' and not even in the St Andrews retail Car Park),

she hasn't had any communication about being taken to court and she hasn't had any notification of losing the case either.

We think all correspondence must have gone to her old address.

The 'offence' occurred on a Monday at 4.19pm.

Her shop is a mile away and doesn't close until at least 6pm.

BW legal must have sent the forms to her old address and not bothered to check if the address was still valid even when they took her to court in September 2016.

I'd be grateful to hear how to remove this CCJ without paying the £255 to contest it.

Surely a person can't be issued with a CCJ without any written information whatsoever?

That can't be legal can it?

There was no parking ticket issued either.

The business of default judgements is a complete scandal – especially in relation to the parking industry which seems to obtain a disproportionately high number of default judgements against people who for some reason have not received documents – often because they are no longer at their original address.

Someone on another thread on this forum made a point quite recently that it is ridiculous that there are more rigourous requirements for challenging a default judgement and for obtaining the judgement in the first place. Absolutely right.

I'm afraid that you will need to apply for a set-aside using a form n244 and it will cost you about £255. You will have to demonstrate to the court that you didn't receive the court papers and also that if you are allowed to file a defence, that you stand a chance of success at trial.

If you want to go down this route then I suggest that you begin by getting copies of all documentation switch are in possession of the court and also apply to the parking company for copies of any evidence which they hold against you. I can imagine that they will not be very helpful and that you may have to do this by means of an SAR which will cost you £10 and will take up to 40 days.

I should add that in my view, it is a further scandal – and maybe a greater scandal – that none debt-related CC J's should be entered onto the credit reference agency files and in this way merely lumped together with any other information which actually might point to a lack of creditworthiness and therefore used to smash up people's financial lives for six years.

In my view there should be at least two categories of CCJ: debt related and non-debt related. Furthermore I think that the credit reference agency files should show very clearly whether a judgement has been obtained in default or after the matter has been tried by a judge in court.

pers I'd be a bit more worried about the potential £1000 fine for not telling DVLA of a change of address for the car and her driving licence?

as that where they would have gotten her address from the DVLA.

who was the claimant? VCS or Excel?

phone northants bulk and ask for a copy of the CCJ.

sadly BW have done nothing wrong here

unless you can prove the DVLA lost her V5C return or the letter etc advising of her change of address?

Is there anything that says how long you are allowed to send DVLA your change of address notification?

Was there no address forwarding which would have captured any NTK issued within the right time frame (14 days if no ticket)?

This is a common problem and the parking co's use it to make hay.

What happens is they apply for the keeper details at around the time of the event and then as by law that is the service address of all documents

if you move house and they get their letters sent back

they issue a summons knowing very well that you arent in a position to respond in time and they win by default.

they then chase you for the money at the new address.

Immoral but proper as far as the use of the address goes.

However,

that means it is very easy to get a set aside of the CCJ

but as you say you have to pay £255 for the application.

The plus side is that the CCJ will be removed and you get a chance of fighting the original claim.

If the parking co is relying on CCTV or other similar methods

they have to send out the Notice to keeper within 12 days of the event and have it on your doorstep by 14 days after the day of the event or they cannot rely upon the POFA to create a keeper liability

If they have slapped a ticket on the car then they have to send out the NTK between 29 and 56 days of the event or again no keeper liability.

Now,

for the parking co to win a rematch they will have to show that they followed the protocols and that is less likely than you may think.

Where exactly is st Andrews retail park?

We can then advise better as to how to approach getting the claim struck out as well as the set-aside.

The parking co is not obliged to recheck DVLA data when they issue a summons,

something that is being discudded by the govt at the moment due to tens of thousands of similar complaints, mostly about parking co's sharp practices.

Wow, thank you all for your very quick and very informative responses!!

My partner moved in February 2015 and advised the DVLA shortly after so there is no problem there.

I checked her log book and it shows the new address.

The 'offence' occurred on 17 November 2014 but no parking ticket was issued.

Also, upon further investigation the car park concerned is probably the St Andrews Retail Park in Hull, which is opposite her shop.

Needless to say she doesn't take the car across the road when she is shopping in that small arcade of shops.

We're awaiting full details from the County Court Business centre in Northampton where the CCJ originated.

I'll update this thread when we have more details

but it looks like this 'offence' may have been fabricated.

I'm not sure how we can prove that she didn't receive any correspondence at the new address unless we can find any letters at the old address

they haven't been thrown out by the new owner.

Thanks again

urm..interesting

offence 17/11/15

moved out 02/15

in my mind that well within even the 56 days allowed in certain instances...

so why was nothing received at the address before you moved out..

something fishy here EB...

the documents were properly served so arguing about not getting anything at the new address is a red herring. You have to fight what you are presented with, not what you wish had happened.

They will be forced to supply their evidence so I suggest that you take photos of where the car is normally parked from all anglesd so we can see what is in the background and then do the same for the car park.

If she has ever used the car park for turning around it may be they are what is called "double dipping" or using the netry time from one event and the exits time from another so it look like she was parked all day when the reality is she just entered and exited twice.

Dont contact the parking co, they will be told by the courts about this in good time and anything you say to a parking co will be misused and they may well doctor their evidence they origianlly had to fit the new circumstance

I completely agree.

There was no ticket issued and the mail was redirected for a year after she moved.

Nothing was redirected to the new address.

There was plenty of time to send her any correspondence.

You are still missing the point,

If they did use the "disappearing ticket" and then obtained keeper details they are obliged to serve on the address as it was.

What you need to do is ask the DVLA who has been looking at keeper details and when to see if they were within time when they did this.

You can then tie this in with your post fowarding.

The courts service will have originals of the docs so get them as part of the set-aside process

Everything they have done afterwards has to be argued over at court during the set-aside and then you may well not have to suffer a rehearing as the parking co may well drop the matter and settle for losing £255 rather than a larger amount for their deceptions.

Deal with the realities of the situation you are in rather than pick over the theoretical rights and wrongs of their claim, they won it and that is that until you get the N244 sent in.

That doesnt stop you gathering the photographs of the place to show to the court in round 3 though.

That hearing may be tagged on to the set-aside as far as case management goes so have your stuff ready

Thanks for that information.

I hadn't thought about asking the DVLA to tell us when this company looked at the keeper details, because I didn't know that information would be available.

We're still awaiting the full info about the CCJ from County Court Business Centre Northampton.

I'll update this thread when I have those details.

date important as far as the access goes, they will be in trouble if they were out of time so you can go after them in a counterclaim if they dont agree to dropping the claim after set aside

UPDATE

- I found out that the company concerned is Vehicle Control Services Ltd.

I rang the DVLA asking them to tell me if they had provided VCS with any information

but I was told that I have to write in to the DVLA to request this information.

So that's what I'm doing today.

The DVLA said they didn't have that information available to someone who rings them.

If this car park is local to you (which I'm guessing it is), please get pictures of the signage at the entrance and in the car park.

VCS have a bit of a track record for making claims in court when all the signage says Excel (owned by the same person), but they're not allowed to do that and it would be an easy way for you to spank them in court once you have your set aside

Thank you, that is very useful information and yes the car park is very near. Thanks again

We have called DVLA to ask for confirmation of when they requested details (ie within 56 days). We were told that we had to send in a written request which we did several weeks ago. We have had no reply up to today. Do DVLA normally give out this information?

Thank you, that is very useful information and yes the car park is very near. Thanks again

I can see no evidence of the name Excel on the car park sign.

If this car park is local to you (which I'm guessing it is), please get pictures of the signage at the entrance and in the car park.

 

VCS have a bit of a track record for making claims in court when all the signage says Excel (owned by the same person), but they're not allowed to do that and it would be an easy way for you to spank them in court once you have your set aside

I can see no evidence of the name Excel on the car park sign.

Yes, they are obliged to but not in any set time.

We have called DVLA to ask for confirmation of when they requested details (ie within 56 days). We were told that we had to send in a written request which we did several weeks ago. We have had no reply up to today. Do DVLA normally give out this information?

post up the picture you took of the sign as there are likely to be many things wrong with the wording of it.

Also we need to know were the signs are relative to the entrance from the public highway,

how many signs in the car park,

do they have different wording to the one at the netrance etc.

all standard stuff that is asked for in numerous threads

so read a large number of them to get a feel for what is needed to defeat a court claim

Yes, they are obliged to but not in any set time.

Ok, thanks for that information, we'll just have to wait then. In the meantime we have sent a letter to Experian and Equifax requesting a correction to be made on the credit file.

Ok, thanks for that information, we'll just have to wait then. In the meantime we have sent a letter to Experian and Equifax requesting a correction to be made on the credit file.

Pagemaster, please remember to post up the information EB asked for in post #21, he's trying to find arguments for you to use to fight with.

HB

Ok, thanks for that information, we'll just have to wait then. In the meantime we have sent a letter to Experian and Equifax requesting a correction to be made on the credit file.

why?

the entries are correct, it is the parking co that are up to no good and until you get the judgement set aside they will correctly stay. Now start reading about parking, contract law and get pictures of the signage and any other detail you can rather than wasting time doing something that is both irrelevant and impossible.

We have now added a note on the credit file to say that we are contesting the CCJ as we have had no notification of it whatsoever.

I had a look at the sign in the car park and took a photo - it is VCS Ltd, not Excel

Today my partner received a letter to say that the parking company are considering calling in a bailiff to recover the amount of £264. They have offered to reduce this to £150 if we pay within 28 days.

The certainly sounds like an abuse of the law to me.

Please let me know what you advise next.

post up the picture you took of the sign as there are likely to be many things wrong with the wording of it.

 

Also we need to know were the signs are relative to the entrance from the public highway,

how many signs in the car park,

do they have different wording to the one at the entrance etc.

 

all standard stuff that is asked for in numerous threads

so read a large number of them to get a feel for what is needed to defeat a court claim

^^you need to do all this

else you'll have no defence for your set side

so what have you actually done yet?

sent in your N244 or anything?

I have the N244 partially completed.

I understand that we must have the judgement set aside first

however I need some help with the defence of the set aside.

I have a photo of the sign.

How can I use this in my defence?

It says VCS on it.

I can't see how to upload it from my computer as the uploader is showing an error.

The file is a jpg 1.6mb size