The wife pays for a few parking spaces at her business which is patrolled by a private company issuing tickets if a valid permit isn’t displayed in the window. On arrival one morning she didn’t have her permit in and had to nip in to the office to get one, 5 minute job. On her return to the car the parking guy was there about to give her a ticket. Obviously stopped h8m in his tracks and he agreed everything was ok. Few weeks down the line she received a letter from the company saying there had been a ticket issued for not displaying a permit. She emailed the company and asked for proof of this as she had never had a ticket put on her. Never got a response . Fast forward 4 years and she receives a letter from the courts saying pay the fine or you will get a CCJ. She returned that letter to appeal and then received another letter saying she was too late and had missed 5e deadline and you now have a judgement against you and you can pay £255 to appeal it. She has now received a letter from a debt collection agency the debt stands at £275. She’s called them and they told her to ring the company that issued the fine in the first place. They are now claiming they sent a response by post to her initial email asking for proof of the offence but she never received anything.
So where does she go from here? Pay the debt collection agency? Does that get rid of the CCJ. Which is really what she’s most bothered about.

Sorry can’t offer any advice but 4 years is a long time for nothing to have happened the all of a sudden a DCA and threat of CCJ

Does that get rid of the CCJ.

EDIT Sorry, re-read it – is there a CCJ? What evidence have they supplied of that?. Was she notified of court proceedings? – doesn’t seem so from what you’ve written. Is the letter definitely from the court, or does it just sound a bit ‘courty’?

Given the failure of process at the time (no reply etc), and evidence in her favour in terms of her eligibility to park there, and the lack of any proveable loss to the landowner, I’d be surprised if they wanted to go that far.

Pepipoo forums might be able to help further. What do her employers say?

E

It’s the wife’s business and she paid for 5 spaces at a cost of £4740 a year which is payable to the landlord of the office she rented. So there is no loss to the landowner, in fact she has a good relationship with him. It’s a private company that police the car park who are pursuing this. The letter is definitely official, HM courts and Tribunals. When she spoke to the parking company today about never receiving evidence of the ticket on her car they said they didn’t need to physically put one on. They did email her with a picture of her car without a permit on which is what they said they sent out in the post 4 years ago which she never received

If the landlord still contracts that company can he intervene?

He could have probably intervened if 4 years hadn’t passed and we weren’t at the CCJ and debt collection agency stage.

If it’s a real CCJ then she should apply to have the judgement set aside on the basis that she did not receive advance warning of the hearing and she could have presented evidence that she did not owe the money.

Is there a reason that these letters are not arriving/ arriving too late to allow appeals?

Given that it is her business, I’d be getting on to a solicitor to see what her options are as the it is quite possible is that debt collectors/bailiffs will start turning up. Delaying payment any further may not be a good option though, it may screw up her credit rating.

I strongly suspect you don’t have a ccj, you have a threat from a debt company that is basically toothless. If you had a ccj it would be court papers from Northampton county court.

have a look on one of the free credit check sites (what did noddle become?) that’ll tell you if there’s a cci against her name

have a good look on pepipoo website in the parking section for advice on how to sort this.

Yeah the credit rating thing is what she’s worried about. The warning of the CCJ came and it was put to one side as she was busy and then we went on holiday so by the time it was filled in to appeal and sent back she’d missed the deadline and the judge had agreed the CCJ. She can appeal that but it will cost £255 to do so

“If it’s a real CCJ then she should apply to have the judgement set aside on the basis that she did not receive advance warning of the hearing and she could have presented evidence that she did not owe the money.”

If the OP’s garbled description of events is correct then she did receive notice of the hearing, so there’s no grounds for the decision to be set aside.

I have the letter which she received back from the court. It says:

Your reply is being returned to you as it was received outside the time permitted and Judgement has been entered against you. If you think that a Judgement has been entered against you incorrectly and you would like to remove it you can apply to set the Judgement aside using the N244 ‘Application Notice’

There is a £255 court fee to process the application……..

She also has a letter from a legal firm saying the unresolved debt stands at £275 which wants paying or the bailiffs will be round and it’ll add another £90. So is she stuffed? Should she pay the £275 and does that remove the CCJ or does she pay the £255 to the courts for the Judgement to be set aside? We’re not even sure what happens after that

The Rules

The warning of the CCJ came and it was put to one side as she was busy and then we went on holiday

I admire your sang-froid!

😂 Thanks

Just pay the £275 to avoid all the stress.

£275 is not going to change your life or make you super rich or poor.

In the meantime just note down that if someone asks you about rigid nonsensical rules enforcement you just have to mention these private parking company as example.

I mean if they cannot give a person 5 minutes break then these private parking company should not be allowed to operate, as life is not about simple rigid rules …

Someone should start investigating those people working behind the private parking company(s) check out who they are …

p/s: if you see the parking ticket guy just tell him that he speaks with fork tongues as the ticket was issued.

These parking companies will become the next PPI once that revenue stream has dried up for the current bunch of leaches.

“Just pay the £275 to avoid all the stress.”

I don’t think that paying the debt will remove the CCJ from a credit record. If that’s more important than the money it might be worth it to gamble on being granted a hearing.

But you’d want a better case then “we couldn’t be bothered coming to court because it interfered with our holiday”.

What does the lease say about the parking? If she had absolute right to the land and the parking company had no right to enforce than that’s a much better place to come from.

On the other hand if you’re not intending to apply for credit for 6 years then do you care about the CCJ?

I don’t think that paying the debt will remove the CCJ from a credit record. If that’s more important than the money it might be worth it to gamble on being granted a hearing.

Yes, I agree that is a problem as it just tarnish a person’s record for a long time.

On the other hand if you’re not intending to apply for credit for 6 years then do you care about the CCJ?

One of my colleague was involved in a bad “investment” helping someone out and he was made bankrupt until he negotiated to pay off the debts.

It’s the CCJ that’s the main worry for her. Yeah it was a blunder missing the deadline but she was prepared to fight it. Now it just seems the only options are to pay the debt collection agency £275 or pay the court £255 to then dispute the claim with no guarantee of winning. As said above she might as well pay the £275 and chalk it down to experience but then there’s still the CCJ hanging over her.

Pay it. If you’ve sat on the unpaid CCJ for more than a month you can’t keep it off her credit report, so hopefully you’re within the deadline. Once it’s on there, it will be there for six years.

The first thing she received after nearly 4 years is a judgement for claimant dated 22nd July asking for £185 or fill in the attached form to appeal it. The appeal form was sent back and dated 5th August which she then received the letter from HM Courts dated 9th August saying she was too late sending the form back in and judgement has been entered against you. Also received the solicitors letter dated 8th August saying she owed £275 and had 7 days to pay or the bailiffs will be round which will add another £90. It just seems its all escalated rather quickly

Ocean Finance have a good article on how debt affects Experian credit scores. The court judgement may not be the most important thing.

Hi ajaj that link doesn’t go anywhere?

Edit: now it does 👍🏻

Seems they have right or wrong managed to secure the CCJ which puts you between a rock and a hard place, at this point I’m with those saying pay up and chalk it up to experience.

It’s normally 21 days to appeal a judgement, from the date the judgement was made. Is that the date you’re referring to, or is that simply the date of the letter?

Either way, you need to get your skates on if you are thinking of contesting it. Have you spoken to the court office to clarify?

Some good, but lots of awful advice here.

Go and register on the Pepipoo forums. Explain to them what’s happened and get clear and correct advice. They’re the experts on this kind of thing.

Like I said above the court are wanting £255 to process the application. Seems a bit pointless when the solicitors letter wants £275. Might as well just pay that have done with it, but it’s the CCJ thing that she’s bothered about and it seems thats gonna be on her record for 6 years and there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s gonna ring the courts this morning for some clarification

If you pay the CCJ completely within a month then you can apply to have it removed from your credit report.

https://www.gov.uk/county-court-judgments-ccj-for-debt/ccjs-and-your-credit-rating

Sobering reading. Similar situation here where Mrs Slack over ran her parking ticket by (according to her anyway) “no more than 10 minutes, on two occasions last year.

Her solution was to not even fight the system but just ignore it. My view was opposite to hers and just pay the initial 2 lots of £50 excess parking fines and be done with it. I thought she had until I came home on Monday evening after a long hard day at work to find a hand delivered handwritten envelope addressed to Mrs Slack, who is away for the week. Yes, I opened it, fortunately. Bailiffs letter, demanding £350 or goods to the value of, for the first offence by order of the local county court.

To cut a long story short, the second one is now £270 and has also gone through the courts, awaiting bailiff action…

To then cut a very long and boring story short, BW Legal, who operate as debt recovery for NCP, made it incredibly difficult for me to pay the amounts they were now entitled to. Hoops, hoops and more hoops, they refused to put me through to a manager when they still refused to speak to me about the details of one of the ‘accounts’, despite Mrs Slack giving them authority in every way they specified, to speak with me.

Tuesday was a right royal pain in the arse quite frankly.

So, I echo chewk’s advice. Pay it, remove the grief from your life and move on and next time don’t ignore or try to fight the system or the law unless you have deep pockets, nothing better to do with your time and/or just want to for shits and giggles – which it never is.

The Clash was my ear worm for the day – I Fought the Law and the Law Won 😁

I’d say pay.

But, and it’s too late now. Who does the ticketer work for? The owner of the car park or the renter of the spaces?
If you rent the spaces at a cost do you not then have the “right” to use them as you wish? What if a customer was directed to them then had to get a permit from the office and returns to a ticket?
Again leaving it was a mistake and it needs to be sorted but I think I’d have an issue with how the spaces are controlled.

BW Legal

Say no more. Have you seen any of their reviews online? Universally despised.

what did noddle become?

Credit Karma.

So she’s spoken to the courts and apparently they sent a letter out on the 30th June giving her the opportunity to appeal the judgement, wife says she never received that, or should I say she doesn’t recall receiving it. She had until the 15th July to reply. Obviously this didn’t happen hence the CCJ coming dated 22nd July which is where there’s a bit of confusion as the wife’s telling me the appeal form came with that. As advised above she has a month to pay the CCJ which gives her till 22nd August. Again there’s been a bit of confusion as to why its been passed to a debt collection agency asking for £275 2 weeks before this deadline. Court said phone the parking company and pay the initial £185 on the CCJ and that’s the end of it. Phoned them and they said it’s nothing to do with them anymore and to ring the debt collectors. Phoned them and they accepted that it was just the £185 and not the £275 as per their letter that needed paying and the CCJ would be cancelled. So that’s what she’s done. Still a barsteward but better than what she thought was gonna happen.
Cheers for all the help

to pay the amounts they were now entitled to

Demanding, but not entitled to.

There’s a common theme appearing with the OP and Slack’s posts.

If your missus gets a letter from the court, it’s probably best to deal with it rather than hope it will go away.