How is it legal for a debt recovery agency to take someone back to court for an outstanding balance without notification?

Question

3 years ago, in my absence I was prosecuted and received a CCJ for a parking fine I wasn't aware of. When I realised via my credit report I paid the fine immediately. £160 fine, direct to a debt recovery firm, over the phone for what I believed was the full amount. They made out the debt was settled and I continued with my life.

However, 3 years later I have received another CCJ for the same parking fine. It turns out that the fine was actually £180. The debt recovery agency took me back to court in my absence and I was prosecuted for the remaining balance. I was never notified of an outstanding balance in any way.

They now want £144 from me. How is this fair or legal, what can I do? It feels like a blatant scam.

Edit: I live in England. The reason for failure to pay the first time was that I moved address, and for a short while (few weeks) didn't change my cars registered address as I was moving to a new house shortly after the initial move.

Christopher Hodges · Accepted Answer

Is there a reason you didn't get the paperwork from the county court for the second ccj? If the PPC sent the county court paperwork to a three year old address without doing any checks whether the address was up to date you could apply to have the CCJ set aside which would take it back to the hearing for the outstanding amount (which would be what...£20? Where is the other £124 coming from?)

It sounds like a default judgement given you don't seem to know anything about it, which means no one looked at it, it was just awarded to the claimant when you didn't respond.

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Trust me when I say there is SO much fraud happening this year, fight them and they will drop it. Companies are desperate at the moment and really trying their luck

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Did you ever receive confirmation from the company that your outstanding payment was £160.00? Or any confirmation from them that the bill was settled?

The £144.00 will probably include the extra £20.00, the issue fee for the proceedings and interest from the date the payment was due.

If you can prove that the CCJ was incorrectly obtained then you can put the pressure on them to remove the CCJ instead of having to deal with the matter yourself.

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I own a parking company.

Contact the company you paid and get confirmation of the account value and how much you paid (unless you already have that information).

Contact the courts requesting it be set aside as it’s been paid in full, and provide your evidence.

Alternatively, if you 100% have the evidence defend the claim with your evidence and put a counterclaim in for any amount you want for distress (£500 is a good all around amount).

Any questions please ask.

Answer

You can apply to the court to have the 2nd ccj set aside on the grounds you were not notified of the action, assuming they had your correct address. They would have to resubmit the paperwork and you can answer the claim accordingly.

Jon Buchanan

18th January 2022

+6

9 upvotes

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A set aside costs £255 it is cheaper though depending on financial circumstances. Overall its up to you to.make the decision which way younwant to go.

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I would firstly tell them to communicate through email, refuse any telephone calls. Then ask for a breakdown of  the cost they are requesting. Ask for a letter from the original person telling you that you have to deal with this new bailiffs.
Give them 28 days to reply with your request or you will presume that it is not your debt.
Never confirm or give your details to them, you don't know who they are.
Also ask for copies of all the information they have on you under the freedom of information act.
Also tell them that once you are satisfied with the information received from them, you will gladly talk to them.
Also because you are in dispute with the debt, any ccj can be stopped until dispute is resolved.
I hope this helps.
I have done this to 10 bailiffs for friends and family. The bailiffs always give up because of the added work I have given them.
Good luck

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Hope you get it sorted. Also NAL at all, but maybe redirecting any post from your previous address to your new one might be an idea.

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If they obtained a CCJ for the first amount, then that is the amount they are entitled to claim. They can’t come back to claim more at a later date. If they got it wrong and missed something off, provided they could have brought the claim for the correct figure at that point, (which is almost certainly the case) you have a complete defence to the second action. 
Invite them to agree to set judgment aside and discontinue the claim - get them to pay the court fee. If they refuse, apply to court yourself and seek the costs of the application back from the claimant.

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Go to court ask to do a stat dec ( statutory declaration) so you can have your day in court, ask for the phone record of when you paid your fine

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If you're on fb there are many groups that help with this sort of thing. Search for parking charge notice on fb. They can help you and also help with drafting letters as well. Also citizens advice are really helpful as well.

Stephen Cushenberry

18th January 2022

Answer

I don't know how the courts work so I can't advise on that, but for anyone else reading who might get stung by private parking companies:

Private parking companies are an industry based on scaring you into paying contractual charges; they do this by imitating police/council parking fines.

Note, they will never call this charge a "fine" because they are actually arguing you formed a contract with them to pay ~£100 for parking.

In the last 10 odd years they have taken to the courts with some flimsy legal decisions to tie people up in red tape, again, scaring them into paying. This means you cannot ignore their threats, but you can fight them and win.

Take advice from pepipoo, there are ways to cancel tickets via legitimate channels designed to regulate these companies. One way is to go to the land owner and ask them to call off the company.

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Ex magistrate court worker... before any summons is issued for a court hearing the court admins - usually an enforcement centre, have to find evidence that the person is actually at that address, usually Dlva, DWP, Credit check and PNC, when they have confirmed 3 of those are correct then a summons is issued... I would contact the local court that issued the proceedings and ask under the data protection / GDPR to see all records held on you. That should let you get a good start on trying to get the situation resolved.

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Go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

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For future knowledge, I'd a private car park company gives you a ticket, write a letter acknowledging that it was your car in the car park at the time, but ask them to prove it was you driving the vehicle. They'll usually just cancel the fine.

There's forums online which give guidance on how to write the letter if you have a search around!

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Hi mate, I really feel for you, I'm a doctor and got a parking ticket while at work in my local hospital, I moved house around the same time and 3 years later noticed a CCJ on my credit report for that fine. They had sent all correspondence to my old address, never doing a second address check. Long story short, you can take this to court. I did and I won. These companies live of of exploitation, and judges know it. Contact the County Court and inform them you wish to dispute this. You will have to pay a fee but it's worth it for your credit file, plus, if you win they will have to pay that fee. The company will 100% try and settle, even last minute, out of court, and you may come to some agreement. But my advice would be to take these bastards all the way to court.

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Highly recommend getting some advice on the moneysavingexpert parking forum. They're quite big into fighting unfair claims and tickets

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/parking-tickets-fines-parking

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Have you checked out the forums online? Google search: money saving experts parking fines CCJ. I'm sure there's alot of people on there who've been on your situation.

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Unfortunately that kind of things happen in the UK and many people suffer because of injustice.

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Not sure if this is allowed, but join this Facebook group and ask for advice, they are free and very good, Barry Beavis is part of the group. 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PrivateParkingTickets/

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Not to hijack, but...in 2009 I paid off my student loan - only to get a letter from the Student Loan Company the next year saying I owed them £10. I followed up and got a letter from them saying I’d paid off my debt in full, only to get a letter from them every subsequent year saying I owed the £10 plus interest. All of which I have gleefully ignored because I’m just waiting for the f*tards to try and collect it so I can flap that 2010 letter in their faces

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Something very similar happend to me about 10 years ago with a privately run car park collection firm. I went to the citizens advice bureau with all the evidence, dates and paperwork, they took over my case and sorted everything for me, I didn't have to make any payments or go to court.

I know it was a long time ago since they helped me, but maybe worth a shot trying them if you haven't already?

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NAL but if you've had confirmation from the debt collection agency that the debt was satisfied then surely they can't get away with adding more on later?

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You need to speak to the courts where your hearing was heard and make a Statutory Declaration. Call through to the clerk and explain the situation, they will talk you through it. Basically, the debt collectors should have contacted you for the remaining debt, rather than taking you to court for it. They had no justification for having a hearing in your absence as you had responded to them and may have acted fraudulently in doing so. In fact, they may have done this right at the start also with the initial hearing in your absence.

Just be sure to keep your neck wound in when speaking to the courts. Be polite, stick to the facts and try to keep emotion out of it.

The courts will decide whether you should have a hearing for your Statutory Declaration. Given the current health pandemic chances are this will be a long while down the road.

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Get in touch with a court and see if you can have the case re opened. You’ll need to make a statutory declaration stating that you were unaware of the initial precedings

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It's their fault and mistake...take the matter to court .Check on limitations of fines and summons. Speak to citizens advice in central London.