CNBC Defence not filed resulting in CCJ MET parking

[LSJ]

Hello, I sent my defence (parking ticket - MET parking services) to the court via email on 22/12/23 on the instructions of one of their advisors, and received an email acknowledgment the same day. On 15/03/24 I received a letter telling me that because I didn’t file a defence, I had to pay the fine and costs and that I had been issued with a CCJ. In the meantime my mortgage is up for renewal and the CCJ means that I can’t take advantage of a lower rate which in turn means that I may lose my home. I have called the court many times and had different advice every time, a solicitor friend called the court for me and got different advice again, I have emailed many times but no one will take responsibility. Is there anything I can do? I was advised by my solicitor friend not to apply to have this set aside on the advice of who she spoke to as this could take up to six months and this needs to be dealt with asap. It’s causing a lot of stress, any help greatly appreciated!

[LSJ]

I haven’t seen any replies to this but I would really like to know my legal position. Is the court, by acknowledging receipt of my defence and not filing it, liable for the financial losses I have incurred due to the CCJ being applied to the register in my name? Or would this be maladministration which would proceed to ombudsman through a complaints procedure?

[des8]

Sorry you haven't received a response, but AFAIK the only way to have a CCJ removed is to apply for set aside.

You can complain about the court's lack of service (https://www.gov.uk/government/organi...ints-procedure) but this will not remove the CCJ.

Others ( R0b atticus echat11 ) may have better advice

[atticus]

Nothing to add.

[LSJ]

Thank you both, your responses are very much appreciated.

I was advised by the court that the quickest way to remove the CCJ would be to pay the fine within 30 days, and then apply for a cancellation letter. I did this and received the cancellation, however, my credit score was already damaged and I’ve had to take on the only mortgage available (payments have more than doubled) and my credit card has been stopped.

After around 10 attempts to communicate the problem to the complaints department at the CNBC, one person has understood and (apparently) my case will go before the judge next week, but as you say, if the case can only be put aside, then my financial standing will remain ruined by the clerical error.

I will post the judge’s decision here in case it helps anyone else who finds themselves in this situation, I was lucky, I may have had to deal with the emotional distress, but I have a supportive family and between us, we can just about manage the mortgage repayments - others may not be in such a stable situation and I daren’t think of how this could affect someone who is struggling.

All for the sake of querying a parking ticket!

Thanks again for your help!

[R0b]

First of all, never take court staff advice, they are not legally qualified and they are certainly not there to give you legal advice. You solicitor friend should have known this and also told you about it, so to some extent he or she was negligent to you.

The general rule is that if you pay a judgment debt, you are deemed to have admitted liability. Court staff are correct in saying that if the debt is paid within one month of the judgment, any CCJ that was reported on your credit file should be removed.

It's not really clear what it is you are actually complaining about and it's also not clear to me whether or not the CCJ has been removed from your credit file with the credit reference agencies. Are you able to confirm this?

Reading your initial post, I could guess that one of a number of scenarios could have happened:

1. The court staff did not read your email with the defence and the claimant sought default judgment which was granted. In this scenario, I would say the court was negligent.

2. The court staff read your email but failed to update the court file and the claimant sought judgment which was granted. Again, I would suggest negligence by the court.

3. You failed to comply with the Civil Procedure Rules when sending the email. The rules state that when filing a document by email, you must state in the subject line: (i) the claim number, (ii) the party names e.g. John Smith v John Doe and (iii) if applicable, the date of the hearing which the email relates to. If you failed to do that, it is possible the court could have ignored your claim.

If you failed to comply with the above and the court ignored it, arguably it is your fault for non-compliance. If you did comply, then the court would on the face of it, be negligent.

I am not sure what a judge is going to do because judgment has been given and you have paid in full and so the dispute is now at the end of the process. In my opinion, the court has no power to unravel this and order the claimant to pay you back the money you paid to them - unless fraud can be proven which I do not think applies here.

The correct process would have been to set the judgement aside assuming you have the email evidence. However, regardless of the current situation, you may have a claim against the court for either breach of statutory duty or negligence. The general rule is that pure economic loss is not recoverable in negligence cases unless you can show there was an assumption of responsibility on that third party. The law around this can be a bit complicated so you would do well to seek legal advice before embarking on any kind of claim like that. I should also point out that I make no comment about any prospect of success claiming against the court, because that is somewhat of a novel claim and therefore there is risk in doing so.

Other than that, I'm of the view that there is no other viable claim you have for your losses you have suffered. One thing that does sound a little odd, is that certain CCJs such as a parking ticket, are not automatically reported to credit reference agencies unless the claimant has started some form of enforcement action such as instructing bailiffs. The other other way I can think that your mortgage company became aware of the CCJ is if they ran a check against your name at the Registry Trust where they may have held the details of the CCJ.

[LSJ]

Thank you Rob, the court received my defence but somehow (we don’t know how as yet) the defence was not filed. The email was correct and followed court instructions.

In following the complaints procedure, one of the team managed to put my case before the judge, who then set the CCJ aside (even though it has already been cancelled) and allowed my defence to be filed. My case is now active again and MET parking services will have to decide (after considering my defence) whether they will continue with the case against me.

I am waiting to see if they will take me to court for a fine that has already been paid - but if what you say is correct, then by paying I may have automatically admitted liability and I’m not sure what happens now.

I understand that it would be novel to persue damages in this case, however, would the court have a duty of care to make sure that my defence was filed, and did they breach that duty resulting in financial loss, reputational loss and the stress that this has caused? Or did they have a contract with me? I sent the defence, they sent the acknowledgement, they didn’t file it and I was left with the fallout of that error.

It’s very confusing and messy, but I do believe that the courts need to guard against this type of thing, as according to the ‘This is Money’ website https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...cils-year.html a staggering 32.17million vehicle-keeper details were provided to third parties by the agency in the financial year 2021/22, which, if true, would mean that there will be more than a handful of ‘errors’ about to come through the system.

If the CNBC is being paid a fee for each fine that gets missed in the post (they seem to intentionally look like circulars until it’s too late to do anything but pay) then the courts should be able to spend this allocating extra resources, and be ready for this deluge of civil claims, and if they’re not ready then there will be another ‘post office’ type scenario where innocent drivers could lose their homes, and possibly a lot more besides.

Thank you again for your help, apologies for the deep dive into the reasoning behind my wanting to bring a claim, hopefully I can take this to the ombudsman who might be able to affect some change.

Very Best
Lynfa

[LSJ]

Sorry, just to add the parking company had already instructed a debt collection agency / bailiffs to send menacing letters over a year before I was given the chance do defend myself in court. Approximately a month after the alleged parking infringement, I noticed the letter, called the company and asked if they had evidence and they told me it was too late, and I could either pay or go to court. I oped to go to court as I believed that they had made a mistake - I worked in a building next door to the garage that I ‘overstayed’ at and they share an entrance, meaning the APNR may have seen me go in and then come out after the allocated free parking limit.