Seems to be a trend on here and other website help forums, to ignore and even laugh off threats from CEL.

Fortunately I have kept all correspondence and have been fighting this for my daughter since May 2016.

Now she has been referred to the County Court Business Centre Northampton issue date 07/04/2017.

In May 2016 my daughter had an appointment at a doctors surgery with her baby for injections.

She is adamant she entered her car number plate on the screen inside the surgery but for some reason did not register.

When the first letter arrived from CEL she approached the surgery to have it dismissed but was advised to be just out of time.

As the letter came to my address she then emailed CEL with her new address and attached a letter with the appointment time from the surgery.

This email was ignored

I emailed CEL and informed them to refer to her change of address.

Apart from getting a reply saying that I need permission from my daughter to act on her behalf, they still send letters to my address [ car registered there at the time ].

Looking for advice here for the best way to deal with these court papers.

I understand parking needs to be governed but this seems unfair on my daughter whom the surgery were expecting.

CEL Statement

All visitors must register for a permit on a touch screen inside reception.

If you park without obtaining a valid permit, you agree to pay £100.

To deter abuse of this car park, these terms apply at all times.

Additional costs will be incurred if payment is not received within 28 days.

Arrival 10.53 20

Departure 11.12.37.

Bill is now £327.04 including legal fees

We havent said ignore here since 2012!!

Please full this out

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?465231-Received-a-Court-Claim-From-A-Private-parking-Speculative-invoice-How-To-Deal-With-It-HERE***Updated-Aug-2016***(1-Viewing)-nbsp

I'd be interested to see how they've (CEL) arrived at that figure in the OP.

CEL have a bot of a habit of trying to include costs that they aren't allowed to claim in the county court and seem to use it as a scare tactic to frighten the defendant in to paying up.

Thanks for the replies chaps, especially during this holiday period.

Haven't been on here for a while and apologies for making reference to this site encouraging folks to ignore letters from CEL [others do].

Thanks for the link, will keep this episode updated right until the final outcome.

get the link done please

answer the questions else we wont have the correct info to help you.

have you sent our CPR 31:14?

and have you acked the claim?

I would say supremcy of contract would sink these idiots fast. Just walk into docs, prove you were there and theyre done for. But in the meantime, fill in that link.

sight of the signage would be very helpful.

Also, who owns the land,

the doctors practice or someone else?

I would give you better than evens that CEL dont have a contract with the landowner.

You can either ask at the surgery or get a copy of the title from the Lnad Registry for £3 online.

As it is your daughter who is being sued

she should be writing to CEL with a CPR 31.14 request for documents,

see any post where a court claim has ben issued for the wording

but sight of contract that assigns the right from the landowner to CEL to enter into contracts and make claims in their own name.

This is important as if they dont have theis they are sunk but will drag the matter out until the last knockings in the hope that she gives in and pays them.

Later she will be complaining to the court about the abuse of process with deliberate misdirection of the legal documents in the vain hope of a default judgement.

(old trick of theirs, they even sent me the cheque for the costs order when they lost their claim against me to my old address on purpose)

to the solicitors

[Your address]

.

[Their address [solicitors]

.

[Date]

.

Dear Sir or Madam,

.

Re: (Claimant's name) v (Your name) Case No:

.

CPR 31.14 Request

.

On (date) I received the Claim Form in this case issued by you out of the (Name) county court.

.

I confirm having returned my acknowledgement of service to the court in which I indicate my intention to contest all of your claim.

.

Please treat this letter as my request made under CPR 31.14 for the disclosure and the production of a verified and legible copy of [each of the following / the] document(s) mentioned in your Particulars of Claim:

.

1. the contract between [parking company name] and the landowner that assigns the right to enter into contracts with the public and make claims in their own name,.

.

2.proof of planning permission granted for signage etc under the Town and Country Planning Act 2007

.

3.copies of the notice to driver, notice to keeper and any other correspondence from [insert Claimant Name] & [insert Solicitors Name} to the defendant that they intend to rely upon in court.

.

You should ensure compliance with your CPR 31 duties and ensure that the document(s) I have requested are disclosed at your earliest convenience..

.

Your CPR 31 duties extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for the originals of the documents I have requested, the better for you to be able to verify the document's authenticity and to provide me with a legible copy.

.

Further, where I have requested a copy of a document, the original of which is now in the possession of another person, you will have a right to possession of that document if you have mentioned it in your case. You must take immediate steps to recover and preserve it for the purpose of this case.

.

Where I have mentioned a document and there is in your possession more than one version of that same document owing to a modification, obliteration or other marking or feature, each version will be a separate document and you must provide a copy of each version of it to me. Your obligations extend to making a reasonable and proportionate search for any version(s) to include an obligation to recover and preserve such version(s) which are now in the possession of a third party.

.

In accordance with CPR 31.15© I undertake to be responsible for your reasonable copying costs incurred in complying with this CPR 31.14 request.

.

If you are unable to comply with this request within 14 days and believe that you will never be able to comply with this request please confirm in your response.

.

You are reminded that as this case is yet to be allocated to a track, CPR31:14 does apply, a refusal to comply because you 'think' at this stage you dont have too will be used against you in any filed defence.

.

Yours faithfully

.

TYPE YOUR NAME DO NOT SIGN IT

Been trying all night to upload pdf files. Looks like i can only upload 5. I will read more thoroughly the replies and advice tomorrow as it may take a while to get my head round it.

cel.pdf

..to be frank

we not asked and don't really need any of those

we known what their forms look like

just fill in the link in post 2 please

you can input the additional POC there as well.

Name of the Claimant CIVIL ENFORCEMENT LTD

Date of issue

07 APR 2017

What is the claim for

Oustanding debt and damages

DATE - DESCRIPTION - AMOUNT - DUE DATE

31/05/16 REF ............ 236.00 31/05/16

What is the value of the claim 236.00 + 16.04 interest 252.04 [court fee 25.00 legal costs 50.00 tot 327.04

Has the claim been issued by YES CEL

the Private parking Company

or was the PCN assigned and

it is the Debt purchaser who has issued the claim ?

Were you aware the account had

been assigned – did you receive

a Notice of Assignment?

I do not understand this question

have you sent a 31:14

have you acknowledged the claim defend all

Been on MCOL [money claim online ]

Your acknowledgment of service was submitted on 17/04/2017 at 18:12:37 [from their website]

Ticked the box "defend all"

Signed box block capitals

Time to prepare defence

Will read advice from members and have a drive round to surgery to take photos of signs etc being careful not to get a ticket in the process.

Been on MCOL [money claim online ]

Will read advice from members and have a drive round to surgery to take photos of signs etc being careful not to get a ticket in the process.

Your Daughter is probably the only one that can do this (Data Protection etc), but get her to get some proof that she had an appointment at the surgery that day (at that time).

Might also be worth spending the £3 at the Land Registry website to see who actually owns the land, as that will be important if they produce a contract at any time. Only the landowner can assign the rights to a third party to allow them to take people to court. If the landowner is not the doctors surgery, it's unlikely that any contract that CEL have with the surgery would give them permission to act in their own right. Even if the land owner is the surgery, it would be worth checking with them that they have given written permission to CEL to take their patients to court (unlikely).

Definitely fire off the CPR 31.14 demand to CEL. When (not if) they fail to respond to that, it will add to your points about them being unreasonable in their conduct.

I also note that the witness statement is signed by Ashley Cohen... You won't know this, but Mr Cohen has a bit of a history of "signing" generic witness statements. Double and then triple check that ALL of the points in his witness statement are a) actually true and b) tally in to the signage etc that is on site.

Also, once you've got pictures of all of the signage on site (include signs that can be seen from the road as you drive in, and any signage that is in the car park (even if that doesn't relate to parking)), please post that in to this thread as well. There may well be other points that we can think of to flesh out your witness statement.

its an additional POC not a witless statement!

though it reads like his WS's..

Well, either way, it'll probably be mostly lies, half truths and exaggerations

that good eh?

Just like to say thanks again for the advice to all those who have posted on this thread.

Each one of you have contributed with some great suggestions.

I have taken them all on board and acted on them. [bar that cp 31.14 thing which i will look at later]

Been round to the surgery,

taken photos and asked lots of questions.

Timing has been perfect,

the machine on the wall wasn't working [bingo]

although you could put your reg number on another one further away.

The surgery owns the land and a more discreet staff member has advised me to visit the manager next Monday, not guaranteed but may be able to do something.

Its Ok Dragonfly,

my daughter was with me when filling out the online court service,

and she still has the letter for the appointment on the day in question.

I shall remain vigilant despite the managers visit Monday.

get the CPR in post 8 running.

don't let anything make you miss the defence filing date

regardless to what anyone tells you

You will need the surgery manager (or someone of authority) to state that the vehicle was parked with their permission as CEL wont drop this just because they dont have a claim.

They probaby wont be attending a court hearing but will stretch it out until the last moment and hope you waver and pay them something.

I have had them phone me up a day after they lost ther claim and ask for a reduced settlement to stop them appealing the decision!

Hit a brick wall on the very first opening lines on that cpr 31.14 request.

"to the solicitors

[Your address]

.

[Their address [solicitors]

What Solicitors? I cannot see any reference to Solicitors on any form my daughter has. I will just leave that out and copy and paste the rest and post it to CEL.

Daughter contacted manager of surgery and received the same answer almost a year ago "your appeal is out of time" and to make matters worse, I have just found out this is the second time she has been approached by CEL. A couple of months previously when she was pregnant, she did forget to enter her reg into the machine and got the same initial fine. She sent an email to CEL apologizing saying she was running late and didn't hear from them again until the 2nd incident.

I will post the CPR registered letter to CEL Friday morning.

then you send it to CEL

but you really shouldn't be taking 10days to do it!!!

and stop usin the word fine..it is not a fine!!

you have ack'd the claim yes?

the templates are just that, templates. You have to use a bit of common sense and use the name of the parking co, solicitors etc.

Yes dx as in post 13 and ticked box defend all.

Posted cpr form to CEL guaranteed next day signed delivery.

I think I have a week left to submit a defence statement online to the Court.

I will probably do it over the weekend, post it on here first before submitting it to the court.

the defence only needs to be a skeleton argument at the moment so something liek

CEL have no locus standi to make a claim, or the defendant denies any contract was entered into to create a cause of action by the claimant.

You then have to gather all of your evidence by the time the courtdate is set and you are told to exchange documents.

This is when CEL will come unstuck by failing to rerspond to your CPR 31.14 request as you can go after them for not showing a basis for claim