Should I pursue a consent letter after submitting N244 to set aside(without consent)?

[Blurp]

I already submitted my N244 application requesting a default CCJ judgment to be set aside (paying £255). The CCJ relates to an unpaid parking charge notice (PCN).
There is a chance the claimant (parking company) could be issuing a consent letter to set judgment aside if I agree to their terms (yet to be defined by them).
I am anxious about attending a court hearing with so much at stake, but I did not want to fail to act promptly after becoming aware of the CCJ (7 days ago).

Should I still pursue such consent letter? Or this boat has already sailed?
If so, what would be the best way to use it? Is there a way to attach the letter to the existing request? or I would have to make a brand new one?

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[Celestine]

If the opponent has potentially agreed to a consent to set aside, this can still be sent to the court once agreed. You've protected your position by making the application to set aside promptly. There will be a few weeks between the judge seeing the papers and a set aside hearing date agreed, so there is time to update the court that the application has agreed by consent and then the process can continue as usual with defence being submitted etc, or are you agreeing to pay?*

[Blurp]

There will be a few weeks between the judge seeing the papers and a set aside hearing date agreed, so there is time to update the court that the application has agreed by consent and then the process can continue as usual with defence being submitted etc, or are you agreeing to pay?

Thanks! I have not agreed any terms yet. Before setting our terms, the claimant is asking for letters with my new address around the time of the claim (July 2019) to establish if I had indeed moved house.

Having said that, their correspondence mentioned: "... We can draft the consent order setting out the settlement terms. We would ask you pay the Court fee of £100. Within the consent order it will confirm that although we issued proceedings at your last known address you have since, provided you supply sufficient evidence, moved and were unable to respond. We will add in a clause to either reserve proceedings and a settlement clause if you are looking to pay the charge. The draft order will also include a no costs clause as each party will bear their own..."

If I agree to pay the charge and a settlement clause, would that weaken my position at a potential hearing? I am assuming I would need to show I have real prospects of disputing the charge if it comes to that?

Any views or suggestions?

[Blurp]

Thanks! I have not agreed any terms yet.

In fact, I am undecided whether I should agree to pay. My preference is to make the CCJ go away as quickly as possible (even if I have to pay without disputing it), but I am worried this could eventually cause my application to be rejected, failing the "why set it aside?" question from the judge.

[jaguarsuk]

Don't offer to pay anything and propose they pay the £100 cost of the application to set aside on the basis that they issued a claim to an address without first diligently confirming it is still yours and pursuant to CPR 13.2 & 13.3 you are entitled to set aside. Confirm that should you have to apply without consent and are successful you'll be seeking the full costs of the application of £255 be awarded to you payable by the claimant.

Once you have successfully set aside the judgement you can asses your legal position at that time and then make an informed decision of how you wish to proceed, whether that is settle or fight the claim.

If you have read this site and know what a CCA Request is or CPR 31.14 request do not let them know, it gives them more time to source documents than if you just drop those on them after getting the judgement set aside. If you don't know what they are, they are part of the process of seeing where you really stand in relation to potentially defeating their claim.

[Blurp]

Don't offer to pay anything and propose they pay the £100 cost of the application to set aside on the basis that they issued a claim to an address without first diligently confirming it is still yours and pursuant to CPR 13.2 & 13.3 you are entitled to set aside.

Thanks JaguarsUK!

PLEASE HELP ... They initially agreed to provide a consent order if I were to pay them £100 for Court fees.
I mentioned I had already paid £255 directly to CCBC, and they started asking more questions and copies of my application, so I am no longer sure where this is going.

Here is where I need help:
If they hold back in providing a consent order, I have a question whether they failed CPR 6.9(3) or 6.9(4.b.i) since they admit they already knew of my new address, however, they said they sent a letter to my new address and did not have a response, therefore used my old one instead. (I never received such letter).

This is what they wrote:

"Our Client asks you pay this (i.e. £100 fees) because they made a request to the DVLA on 07 August 2018 for the registered keeper details of VRN XXX, they were provided with your details at the address of [MY OLD ADDRESS] ON 08 August 2018.In Annex A of the contract our Client has with the DVLA (Keeper of a Vehicle at the Date of an Event contract), our Client can only make requests for keeper details on the date the event occurred or the preceding 26 weeks and therefore could not simply go back 6 months later to see if you had then updated your address. We completed an Experian trace in June 2019 where Experian consider recent credit applications and the address given on the same, the trace confirmed that you had made a recent credit application at the address of [MY NEW ADDRESS]. We sent a letter to this address but received no response and therefore could not update the information, as the address of [MY OLD ADDRESS] was given to our Client by a Government body it had no reason to believe it was incorrect and therefore proceeded with this address as your current/last known address."

Considering my new address is updated everywhere, including electoral roll, I wonder if they should not have sent the claim to the new address as they could not query DVLA again (as opposed to relying on very old information)? In this case, have they failed CPR 6.9(3)?

Even if their argument is correct, they probably would have found a [THIRD ADDRESS] as well from Experian, since I moved house twice, and had mail redirection from such third address to [MY NEW ADDRESS]. In this case, they could have failed CPR 6.9(4.b.i), correct?

Final question. I do not mention any CPR in my application to set judgment aside (such as "pursuant to"). Should I try to add another explanation page, or wait for the hearing to make any references to CPR?

Any help would be much appreciated!

[R0b]

What did you say exactly in your application? You should have really explained the basis on which you were looking to set aside either under CPR 13.2 or 13.3 or both, depending on the circumstances of your case. You can't just add an extra page to your application because you missed it off, you will probably need to explain that in the hearing and make it clear which part of CPR 13 you are relying on.

In terms of their response, it's a bit of a naff one to be honest. They made a DVLA request in August 2018 and then after carrying out a credit application trace, became aware of a new address, meaning that they were on notice that you must have moved address. I can't see how they had no reasonable to dispute the DVLA information when they admit in their response that they never carried out a second request for updated information and therefore I cannot see how they can suddenly believe you never moved because you didn't get a response. The fact that a credit application was made from a different address, one would reasonably assume that the person has since moved.

They could have carried out an electoral roll check or use a tracing agent to verify the address that they became aware of. Even if they couldn't do that, there is an absolute obligation on them to consider an alternative method of service : email, LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp etc. only after they have considered an alternative method and no such method is available, can they issue to the last known address - which by the way, should have been the credit application one, and not the DVLA one so they failed to properly serve in any event!

You could, if you wanted respond back to them pointing out their flaws, sevrice of the claim form was not valid and therefore could be set aside as of right. Explain you are pressing ahead with the set aside unless they pay your fees of £255. You should also request a copy of the Experian request so you can verify what they are saying is true, and not that they have selectively chosen an address which is not shown as the latest one. You may even want to call their bluff and say if you think you are confident of not getting the set aside they are free to put in a formal objection and the court can decide.

Court is always a risk but that's the risk you have to take and the reason why you need to be prepared for any potential questions.

[Blurp]

R0b , thank you ever so much!

What did you say exactly in your application? You should have really explained the basis on which you were looking to set aside either under CPR 13.2 or 13.3 or both, depending on the circumstances of your case. You can't just add an extra page to your application because you missed it off, you will probably need to explain that in the hearing and make it clear which part of CPR 13 you are relying on.

I understand that would have been ideal, but I only read your old post and developed a better understanding on how to go about it after having submitted my request to the Court to set judgment aside (paying £255). I probably rushed it a bit since I felt I needed do it promptly, but I am not sure how much damage I caused in the process by not specifying a particular CPR in my N244 form. In short, I said in my application I did not receive any notification, did not have chance to respond, could not review the PCN, questioned the validity of the PCN since I had a park permit in my car the entire time, and mentioned they misrepresented my acceptance to pay the PCN.

You should also request a copy of the Experian request so you can verify what they are saying is true, and not that they have selectively chosen an address which is not shown as the latest one. You may even want to call their bluff and say if you think you are confident of not getting the set aside they are free to put in a formal objection and the court can decide.

This is what I intended to do (even if via subject access request) in case we could not reach an agreement (i.e. consent) to have everything resolved as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the application has already been submitted, so this would be a strategy for the potential hearing. I am also running out of time for a remortgage application, so my main focus is to have the CCJ removed and clear my personal record (despite some potential collateral damage financially).

Court is always a risk but that's the risk you have to take and the reason why you need to be prepared for any potential questions.

The Claimant's solicitors sent me a consent letter with the following terms:

UPON THE PARTIES having agreed terms of settlement
AND UPON it coming to light the Defendant was not residing at the address proceedings were issued and therefore they were unable to respond to the Claim
AND UPON the above constituting ‘some other good reason why’ further to CPR 13.3(b).

It is agreed BY CONSENT that:-
1. The Judgment 14 August 2019 and is hereby set aside;
2. Within 14 days of the date of service of this Order the Defendant do pay the settlement fee of £160 to the Claimant’s Solicitors;
3. In default of 2. of this Order the Claimant do be entitled to obtain Judgment against the Defendant without further notice; and
4. No Order as to costs.

I intend to submit it alongside a separate page with the following explanation:

EXPLANATION OF FURTHER SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS (CONSENT)

08

Consent Order and Correspondence from Claimant’s Solicitors

The request seeking to set default judgment aside has been submitted under a view that both Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) 13.2 and CPR 13.3 are applicable (mandatory and discretionary grounds). Since the first submission of the original request on the 11th May 2020, it was possible to achieve an agreement and consent from the Claimant to set judgment aside under CPR 13.3. Therefore, I would appreciate if the enclosed Consent Order can be considered and applied to set the default judgement aside by consent without the need of a hearing for an expedient conclusion of this matter. If such Consent Order cannot be applied, then I would still appreciate the opportunity to present my defence.

Since the paperwork has not yet been seen by the judge, I am hoping to stand a chance at skipping a hearing, but I do not want to place myself in a weaker position should a hearing be necessary.

What do you guys think? Is this something that could work to resolve everything quickly?
Are there any gaps in their consent order I need to fill?

[R0b]

Your application doesn't really explain what basis you are setting aside but what you have written suggests you are wanting it set aside under CPR 13.3 instead of CPR 13.2 which is mandatory.

You do realise that the Consent Order says you will agree to pay £160 and you don't get your costs back. Also, if you consent then there is no need to provide any further supporting information other than the Consent Order itself. The court isn't really interested in why the Consent Order is justified, and to be honest you will probably just confuse them meaning that the Consent Order might be returned or a judge might end up asking more questions that you don't want or need.

Either you sign the Consent Order as is, offer the solicitors a modified version or proceed with a hearing.