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Hi,
I'm hoping for a bit of advice as I am losing my mind over this situation...
Just before Christmas, on checking his credit record, my husband found that he had a CCJ for £185 against him. From further investigation, it transpired that it was for a parking ticket issued a year before from ParkingEye after we overstayed the 2 hour limit.
We received a letter at the time asking us to pay the fine, but unfortunately acted on what we now know to be old advice to ignore the letter. We were planning our wedding at the time and my husband was going through redundancy so it was a particularly chaotic period which led to this oversight. We then heard nothing more about the matter until doing the credit check nearly a year after the original incident.
Following enquiries with Northampton County Court, we decided to apply for the Default Judgment to be set aside on the basis that no correspondence whatsoever on the Claim was received and that we believe we have a reasonable chance of defending the original Claim. However, had we known this was going to court we would in actuality have paid immediately to avoid any proceedings.
We have submitted the form but made a mistake in the application process that I fear will cost us, as we were not aware of the Court's requirement for promptness. We found out about the CCJ just before the Christmas period and as we have no legal knowledge, we thought we would have plenty of time to complete the form. We therefore took our time to prepare our arguments and consider the best approach. It took us 2 months to send the form since finding out about the CCJ as we submitted it at the end of Feb. We only discovered the promptness issue 2 days before we submitted which is too late! We explained our reasoning for the delay in the witness statement and included an apology to the Judge but I am very concerned that our chances may now be severely diminished as a result of this and I suspect genuine ignorance may not wash with a Judge...
We have also been in touch with ParkingEye to ask them to consent to having the Judgment set aside and have said we are willing to discuss payment if this is granted. In truth, we are more than happy to pay up if we can get this removed from the register as this is all we want. We have to date received one email from ParkingEye saying they needed further details as they couldn't find our case, then a template response saying it is too late to go through their appeals process but that we can either pay up or apply to have the DJ set aside. However we had explained to them that we had already submitted the application for the set aside. We have since replied to clarify our request and have to wait another 10 working days for their reply.
I am acutely aware that we have made mistakes in this process and this is a huge source of stress for us both. We want to buy a home and understand we are unlikely to be able to get a mortgage for the next 5 years if the CCJ stands. We may also need to move from our current rented home as our landlord may want to sell, but it appears that new landlords are unlikely to consider us either, so I'm terrified that at best our dream of owning our own home will be ended for the fordeeable future and at worst that we could end up homeless if the set aside isn't granted.
Our hearing has been set for the end of June so we now have a very anxious wait until then, pending any agreement on a Consent Order from ParkingEye (not holding my breath). It would be helpful to know what you think our chances might be and if there is anything else we can do to try to rectify this. We plan to attend the hearing - would it be a good idea to hire a solicitor for this? Do hearings usually involves direct questioning of the parties?
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
I'm hoping for a bit of advice as I am losing my mind over this situation...
Just before Christmas, on checking his credit record, my husband found that he had a CCJ for £185 against him. From further investigation, it transpired that it was for a parking ticket issued a year before from ParkingEye after we overstayed the 2 hour limit.
We received a letter at the time asking us to pay the fine, but unfortunately acted on what we now know to be old advice to ignore the letter. We were planning our wedding at the time and my husband was going through redundancy so it was a particularly chaotic period which led to this oversight. We then heard nothing more about the matter until doing the credit check nearly a year after the original incident.
Following enquiries with Northampton County Court, we decided to apply for the Default Judgment to be set aside on the basis that no correspondence whatsoever on the Claim was received and that we believe we have a reasonable chance of defending the original Claim. However, had we known this was going to court we would in actuality have paid immediately to avoid any proceedings.
We have submitted the form but made a mistake in the application process that I fear will cost us, as we were not aware of the Court's requirement for promptness. We found out about the CCJ just before the Christmas period and as we have no legal knowledge, we thought we would have plenty of time to complete the form. We therefore took our time to prepare our arguments and consider the best approach. It took us 2 months to send the form since finding out about the CCJ as we submitted it at the end of Feb. We only discovered the promptness issue 2 days before we submitted which is too late! We explained our reasoning for the delay in the witness statement and included an apology to the Judge but I am very concerned that our chances may now be severely diminished as a result of this and I suspect genuine ignorance may not wash with a Judge...
We have also been in touch with ParkingEye to ask them to consent to having the Judgment set aside and have said we are willing to discuss payment if this is granted. In truth, we are more than happy to pay up if we can get this removed from the register as this is all we want. We have to date received one email from ParkingEye saying they needed further details as they couldn't find our case, then a template response saying it is too late to go through their appeals process but that we can either pay up or apply to have the DJ set aside. However we had explained to them that we had already submitted the application for the set aside. We have since replied to clarify our request and have to wait another 10 working days for their reply.
I am acutely aware that we have made mistakes in this process and this is a huge source of stress for us both. We want to buy a home and understand we are unlikely to be able to get a mortgage for the next 5 years if the CCJ stands. We may also need to move from our current rented home as our landlord may want to sell, but it appears that new landlords are unlikely to consider us either, so I'm terrified that at best our dream of owning our own home will be ended for the fordeeable future and at worst that we could end up homeless if the set aside isn't granted.
Our hearing has been set for the end of June so we now have a very anxious wait until then, pending any agreement on a Consent Order from ParkingEye (not holding my breath). It would be helpful to know what you think our chances might be and if there is anything else we can do to try to rectify this. We plan to attend the hearing - would it be a good idea to hire a solicitor for this? Do hearings usually involves direct questioning of the parties?
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
xx
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