CEL Claimform - PCN

[ericsbrother]

they will add another £200 for ashley writing his witless statement, and load of other costs to bump the total up to over £700 if they can so they can get the bailiffs round should you not defend.

 

The simple answer is to defend the claim and they are then more likely to drop the whole thing than continue.

 

All the things you raise can be raised with the courts service later on but only when you get to a point where an allocation to your local county court has been made and that is several steps away.

 

It is a shame the first letter demanding money was thrown away,

it would have probably failed to invoke keeper liability

so NEVER do that again,

always keep them for at leat 2 years if they dont cancel the ticket beforehand.

 

for now the keeper acknowledges the claim,

preferably via moneyclaimonline and then she has an extra 14 days to submit an outline defence.

 

Something like

"there was no breach of contract as the driver/defendant purchased a ticket at the time in accordance with the conditions of the signage and the BPA code of Practice"

 

taking 10 minutes to read the signs and then deciding to find the change to pay is perfectly OK,

both in the BPA rules and also in the key decisiosns of PATAS as was

so CEL have to show their system is better than both of these and they cant.

[ericsbrother]

as said

you make that clear later,

for the moment you have been sued

so you deal with things in the correct order or you lose,

regardless of the merits of the claim.

 

 

CEL rely entirely on people not defending to make money and that is why they invent amounts and charges they knwo wont get past judge in a court hearing .

[ericsbrother]

OK when the 14 days after the date of issue (22nd june) are up you write to the courts service and ask that the claim be struck out for abuse of process and the claim having having shown no evidence of a cause for action against the defendant.

 

They said they will provide the detail of their cause for action and they should or shut up.

If they dont you can also ask for costs as their action is unreasonable under CPR 27.14.2

 

This is separate to any other letters you need to send

so it might be worth speaking to Northampton if you can naviage their peculiar phone system to ascertain where to send this strike out letter to

 

(usually them but could be elsewhere and at least they will be reminded tht it is coming and actuallyaction it rather thanjust filing it and letting someone else read it in 6 months time)

[ericsbrother]

right,

what you have filed is an outline of your defence so unless you said something completely stupid you don't need to change the defence,

 

just add the detail to it when your have a court hearing allocated and are told to exchance documents.

 

What was your defence?

No contract and no keeper liability will be plenty, that is one line

[ericsbrother]

V v WF

it reinforces the idea that you can enter into a unilateral contract and by parking you have deemed to have done so..

 

Of course, this is driver laibility not a defined keeper liability as prescribed by the POFA so irrelevant.

Also it doesnt take into account the wording of that contract and the one your driver was offered will certainly be different, probably unenforceable and possibly unlawful.

 

As your outline defence states their claim is gibberish they may be asked to submit futher evidence to a court under a Case Management Order.

 

If possible get this heard at your local court and make it a hearing by a judge rather than a paper exercise.

 

CEL wont pitch up and that kicks the matter into touch unless they want to start all over again and pay new costs the worse that can happen with this CMO is you are aksed to respond to their new info to see if you now want to put your hands up to owing the money.

say no to that anda date is then set for a full hearing and costs normally reserved.

 

when I was sued by CEL they were ordered to pay my CMO hearing costs as well as getting a warning that they were going to lose if they continued.

 

Needless to say they trid to get me to admit I owed the something by telephoning a day later but when I told them to get lost they folded and paid my costs