County Court Claim from Parking Eye

[siraj16]

Hi everyone, I don't want to bore people with fine details of my PCN so I'll summarise VERY concisely: I parked at a clinic as a walk-in patient, left without signing in due to long waiting times so there's no proof I used the car park for clinic purposes (besides the record of a call shown on my phone bill to the clinic roughly an hour before I attended - you'd think that would prove a timeline of events.) My initial "appeal" was rejected, I didn't appeal via POPLA due to various reasons, and PE didn't give me sufficient time to respond for an ADR - postal delays due to Xmas period which is when I received the letter.


I'm now at the stage where I've received the County Court Claim and I have 1 question:


Currently the claim is £100 + £50 legal rep fee + £25 court fee, before it has even gone any further than just receiving the claim form from CC. The form states that if judgement goes against me, there may be additional charges plus interest on top of the £175. Is this correct?


Depending on the answer to the above, I will decide whether to defend my case. I'm not keen to pay £££s on a silly unfair PCN which may also damage my credit history. If I do go ahead, I will post the full details of my case and would very much appreciate some help in writing my defence.


Thanks

[ostell]

Re: County Court Claim from Parking Eye

If the case goes against you and you pay the sum required within 28 (?) days then it will not affect your credit rating.

The £50 legal rep fee has been disputed before because the solicitor signing the form is an employee of PE and the cost would be there even if a claim was not brought against you.

[siraj16]

Re: County Court Claim from Parking Eye

Thanks. So is it possible that if the CCJ goes against me, I may end up paying more than the £175?

[ostell]

Re: County Court Claim from Parking Eye

The amount of expenses that can be claimed in Small Claims is very limited. So you may be paying more but nothing substantial.

[mystery1]

Re: County Court Claim from Parking Eye

Currently the claim is £100 + £50 legal rep fee + £25 court fee, before it has even gone any further than just receiving the claim form from CC. The form states that if judgement goes against me, there may be additional charges plus interest on top of the £175. Is this correct?

They use a company to represent them that doesn't charge travel costs. They cannot recover their cost unless a judge sees your behaviour as unreasonable, which cannot include merely defending the claim.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...s/part27#27.14

Costs on the small claims track
27.14
(1) This rule applies to any case which has been allocated to the small claims track unless paragraph (5) applies.
(Rules 46.11 and 46.13 make provision in relation to orders for costs made before a claim has been allocated to the small claims track)
(2) The court may not order a party to pay a sum to another party in respect of that other party’s costs, fees and expenses, including those relating to an appeal, except –
(a) the fixed costs attributable to issuing the claim which –
(i) are payable under Part 45; or
(ii) would be payable under Part 45 if that Part applied to the claim;
(b) in proceedings which included a claim for an injunction or an order for specific performance a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for legal advice and assistance relating to that claim;
(c) any court fees paid by that other party;
(d) expenses which a party or witness has reasonably incurred in travelling to and from a hearing or in staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;
(e) a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for any loss of earnings or loss of leave by a party or witness due to attending a hearing or to staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;
(f) a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for an expert’s fees;
(g) such further costs as the court may assess by the summary procedure and order to be paid by a party who has behaved unreasonably; and
(h) the Stage 1 and, where relevant, the Stage 2 fixed costs in rule 45.18 where –
(i) the claim was within the scope of the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents (‘the RTA Protocol’) or the Pre-action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury (Employers’ Liability and Public Liability) Claims (‘the EL/PL Protocol’);
(ii) the claimant reasonably believed that the claim was valued at more than the small claims track limit in accordance with paragraph 4.1(4) of the relevant Protocol; and
(iii) the defendant admitted liability under the process set out in the relevant Protocol; but
(iv) the defendant did not pay those Stage 1 and, where relevant, Stage 2 fixed costs; and
(i) in an appeal, the cost of any approved transcript reasonably incurred.
(3) A party’s rejection of an offer in settlement will not of itself constitute unreasonable behaviour under paragraph (2)(g) but the court may take it into consideration when it is applying the unreasonableness test.
(4) The limits on costs imposed by this rule also apply to any fee or reward for acting on behalf of a party to the proceedings charged by a person exercising a right of audience by virtue of an order under section 11 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 19901 (a lay representative).




https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr.../pd_part27#7.1

Costs
7.1 Attention is drawn to Rule 27.14 which contains provisions about the costs which may be ordered to be paid by one party to another.
7.2 The amount which a party may be ordered to pay under rule 27.14(2)(b) (for legal advice and assistance in claims including an injunction or specific performance) is a sum not exceeding £260.
7.3 The amounts which a party may be ordered to pay under rule 27.14(3)(c) (loss of earnings) and (d) (experts’ fees) are:
(1) for the loss of earnings or loss of leave of each party or witness due to attending a hearing or staying away from home for the purpose of attending a hearing, a sum not exceeding £95 per day for each person, and
(2) for experts’ fees, a sum not exceeding £750 for each expert.
(As to recovery of pre-allocation costs in a case in which an admission by the defendant has reduced the amount in dispute to a figure below £10,000, reference should be made to paragraph 7.4 of Practice Direction 26 and to paragraph 7.1(3) of Practice Direction 46.)



Unlikely to be a witness as it's Anpr.

Have you contacted the clinics management ?

M1