Distraught disabled lady

[Angel11]

I am a severely disabled female and entered a car park above a Wilkos store 4 years ago. My daughter was with me as I was in my wheelchair and put my blue badge on the dash. By the way, all Smart Parking machines for anyone else parking had been dismantled and no one could obtain tickets anyway!
I have 3 hrs parking on my blue badge anyway.
4 years later, I receive a parking charge from smart parking.
I wrote explaining my circumstances twice. Both times they ignored my letters.
I then get a Northampton County court letter. I wrote again. Once aga, no reply!
I then get a letter demanding money, so called fine for over £300 saying charges had been added by CST Law! Plus telling me it had already gone through court.
I wrote again to CST Law telling them all of the above and I'm Disabled and this is a true case if Disability Discrimination and ignoring my letters, plus giving me absolutely no chance to appeal.
They've now registered a CCJ against me and CST law have written back demanding the money and stating that everything I have said is void, as far as their client concerned and furthermore, its not a Disability Discrimination case! I even sent a photocopy of my blue badge twice.
I am a vulnerable female living alone and this has now caused me grave distress and affected my mental health.
I'm retired and can hardly afford to luve as it is on the small income I receive and my rent etc increased.

Please can someone help me or advise me of what my legal rights are, if any.

Also, I'm living in fear now that they will send bailiffs. Its scary and I'm frightened every day now.

If they demand I pay, what is the smallest amount per month can I propose as it will cause me financial hardship and criseis?

[echat11]

You need to park the Disability Discrimination element of your complaint, just for the time being.

When you received the Northampton County Court claim form, what did you do? Did you reply to it?

You could consider setting aside the CCJ, there are fees to pay, but you might be able to get a wavier on the fees because of your low income.

You also need to find out who operated the Wilko Car Park you parked in e.g. was it Horizon, Euro Car Parks etc.

[Angel11]

Yes I replied twice to the court claim form. Plus to Smart Parking and to CST Law who claim to be acting for Smart Parking. Of course Wilkos have gone bust sincr. How convenient for Smart Parking!

Sorry, but I don't understand your 3rd paragraph about 'setting aside' the ccj and getting a waiver on the fees.
How would I go about doing this and to whom do I contact between the 3 of the contacts involved ie smart parking in the first instance, cst law who they then supposedly appointed to act for them, then Northampton County court .
Thank you for your reply.

[R0b]

Something doesn't quite add up with what you are saying.

What do you mean by 'you replied twice to court claim form'? When someone issues a claim against you, you need to file a defence to the allegations being made against you. If you filed a defence then I am struggling to see how you have landed yourself with a CCJ without having a court hearing or following the steps as ordered by the court as you would have been sent further correspondence after your defence has been filed.

If you filed a defence and the court failed to process that then you should be entitled to have the CCJ set aside but you will need to prove how the defence was filed, either by post or email. It does sound like you haven't filed a defence and if you didn't do that within the prescribed timeframe, the claimant is entitled to request judgment against you - these are known as default judgments.

You can make an application to the court to have that judgment set aside and if successful, legal proceedings would revert back to the defence stage where you would have to file a defence with the court and serve it on the other side too. Because you accept receiving the claim form, it may be a difficult task to argue why the judgment should be set aside unless there is some other compelling reason why you couldn't file a defence.

Applications cost £275 and if success you might get that money back depending on how much weight the court attaches to your failure to file a defence if that is indeed the reason. If you are on low income then you might be entitled to benefit from exemption from the fees but you would need to complete the link below and if successful you will get a Help With Fees reference which you insert on the application form when you submit it.

Get help paying court and tribunal fees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

All applications made to the court need to be supported by evidence and that is in the form of a witness statement which is a set of facts and evidence you rely on as to why the judgment should be set aside.

If I'm being honest, I get the feeling that you will really struggle with this process but you have limited options available which are:

1. Attempt to get the CCJ set aside as I describe above. You will need a witness statement to explain the background to this and why it should be set aside, plus the fee or apply for a fee exemption.

2. Accept liability but you will have a CCJ on your credit file for the next 6 years. Usually they don't go on straight away but only happens when the claimant decides to take enforcement action such as instructing bailiffs.

3. Make an application to the court using the same process as #1 above but request a variation to judgment order so that you will pay by instalments. It's likely the CCJ at this stage will be recorded on your credit file for 6 years.

4. Do absolutely nothing, but expect bailiffs to come knocking although they have to give 7 days warning by letter before they do turn up. So long as you keep your doors locked (backdoor and garden gates) and don't open them then they cannot force their way inside without a court order allowing them to force entry. They usually turn up and either try to be nice so you will let them in or be aggressive and threaten all sorts to try to force your hand, but you just need to stick to your guns. If you inform them that you are a vulnerable person then they should either leave you alone or comply with additional steps. to ensure no unfair treatment or advantage it taken. Most cases, you can ask them to send the matter back to the debtor though they are not legally required to.

[echat11]

If you've written to Smart Parking 'twice' and they ignored your letters, then you should of lodged a formal complaint (with evidence), followed their complaints procedure on their website. You could still do it now, The difficulty is, as Rob pointed out, that there would have been letters in between.

https://www.smartparking.com/uk/uk-complaints-policy

You would be a 'vulnerable' person and treated as such if bailiffs call. So you could write a letter, provide evidence of your disability and hand it to the 'bailiff' through the letter box (carefully).

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/de...re-vulnerable/

[Angel11]

I did write to appeal to smart parking post getting the warning of court proceedings, but they ignored my letters and went ahead and appointed CST Law to deal fir them

. I then wrote to CST Law and they tok didnt reply to my correspondence of my evidence and my daughter as witness and filed with tbe courts anyway. Ive been treated abysmally and its all been dealt with i an extremely underhanded way by both smart parking and cst law.

4 years have gone by before I heard anything of this from Smart Parking. I've lived at my address 12 years and I received no mail immediately after the parking on wilkos car park!!

what concerns me now is that you both mention bailiffs and it is our understanding in my family, after doing research on Martin Lewis site, that as its technically a charge from a private parking company, its like an Invoice for the charge as it wasnt police or local authority land.
Therefore he states that they cant appoint bailiffs only debt collectors which people get misguided by . Northampton court he states isnt a criminal court. Its a so calked court but deals with civil cases and doesnt carry thr same weight.

im only quoting the martin lewis site.

[echat11]

I did write to appeal to smart parking post getting the warning of court proceedings, but they ignored my letters and went ahead and appointed CST Law to deal fir them

. I then wrote to CST Law and they tok didnt reply to my correspondence of my evidence and my daughter as witness and filed with tbe courts anyway. Ive been treated abysmally and its all been dealt with i an extremely underhanded way by both smart parking and cst law.

4 years have gone by before I heard anything of this from Smart Parking. I've lived at my address 12 years and I received no mail immediately after the parking on wilkos car park!!

what concerns me now is that you both mention bailiffs and it is our understanding in my family, after doing research on Martin Lewis site, that as its technically a charge from a private parking company, its like an Invoice for the charge as it wasnt police or local authority land.
Therefore he states that they cant appoint bailiffs only debt collectors which people get misguided by . Northampton court he states isnt a criminal court. Its a so calked court but deals with civil cases and doesnt carry thr same weight.

im only quoting the martin lewis site.

O.K., so lodge a formal complaint via the email address on their website, but the important thing is to follow through with the complaint. Bearing in mind that if you want to set a side the CCJ, you can do that as well, don't delay.

Also send Smart Parking a SAR.

https://legalbeagles.info/library/gu...ccess-request/

[PallasAthena]

I'm still confused about what has happened and when and it might help us if you can upload onto here copies of the correspondence you have received. Before uploading cover up everything that could identify you - your name address and car registration, any court reference numbers and bar codes, and any of the claimant/CST law references numbers.

I appreciate that after 4 years it will be difficult to check this, but did the car park allow free parking for people with Blue Badges? Blue Badge law doesn't apply in private car parks, it is at the discretion of the car park operator whether to charge BB holders.

Complaining about the unfairness of it won't get you anywhere I'm afraid. Parking companies are heartless and don't care about anything except getting money from you, and courts deal with law and procedure not fairness. Unless you follow the specified court procedures and use the correct court forms you will lose your case. Writing letters is not an acceptable substitute for court procedures once legal action has started.

You appear to have misunderstood what you found on Martin Lewis. It is correct that parking is never a crime so criminal courts are not involved, it is civil courts that deal with parking litigation. And correct that private parking companies cannot fine you and are just issuing invoices they hope you will pay. So private parking companies unless they go to court cannot send in baliffs. But if a parking company takes you to court and a judge in a civil court decides you are liable to pay the parking company's invoice then baliffs can be appointed to enforce the court's judgement and try to collect the money from you as explained in post #4 above.

The Northampton court office, the 'Civil National Business Centre', is the national administrative office for the civil courts in England and should not be ignored.

[Angel11]

Okay. Fine. You all seem to be extremely knowledgeable regarding my case!

My family and I will take it from here given the fact that these private parking companies and anyone connected with them therein, are pure evil money grabbing and greedy, heartless specimens of pokr excuse for humans!! Spawns of Satan imo.

God bless you all and hope you never encounter such a situation as I have whereby ignoring a plea on numerous occasions has rendered me with a hefty so called invoice and smart parking have lined their pockets with vulnerable persons meagre income.

[PallasAthena]

Good luck, it seems you didn't find our advice helpful enough to want any more of it. If you change your mind please upload the documents you have received. Your description of private parking companies is accurate which is why arguing with them about fairness is a waste of time.

[islandgirl]

Hi Angel11 I suggested reposting separately on your own thread so people could pass on advice. The thing is the people here are genuinely extremely knowledgeable about these issues and are trying their best to help. We totally agree with your opinion of the parking companies. Post 4 gave you all the options you have, any of which people here will help with. We are with you 100% - you should not have received this charge and it is unfair however just writing to these people or to the courts will not work. You have to know how to object no matter how much in the right you are. Of course they will ignore your plea. That is how they work. That is why people here give up hours of their time to help others fight these unfair charges. Of course you are welcome not to take advice and take one of the options yourself with no further help but if you do need us or want us to work with you we will be here. Good luck.

[echat11]

One of Smart Parking Accreditations and partnerships is with Disabled Motoring UK, strange but true.

Some time ago, can't remember the store, but wrote to some entities, can't remember at this time, on someone behalf, they withdrew the fine, but this was before a Court Claim. They do listen, make your case with evidence.

[PallasAthena]

Some time ago, can't remember the store, but wrote to some entities, can't remember at this time, on someone behalf, they withdrew the fine, but this was before a Court Claim. They do listen, make your case with evidence.

Sadly in this case the store in question was the now defunct Wilko.

[echat11]

Sadly in this case the store in question was the now defunct Wilko.

True, but most stores don't own the land, I'm sure I wrote to the PLC that owned the land.

[PallasAthena]

True but it's the shops that the car park serves that have the commercial and reputational motivation to get unfair PCNs cancelled, even if legally they don't control the car park. Anonymous property developers, often in off-shore tax havens, who are the legal owners have no such incentive. Whenever I see a report on other parking forums about people getting PCNs cancelled that way it's always after they wrote to the shop they had been shopping in.

In this case OP would have the further problem in getting a discretionary cancellation in that it happened 4 years ago.

Hard to say what success there might be with the car park owner in this case as OP has shared so little detail - we don't even know why the PCN was issued or what was said by the PPC to the court.