Late contact from Private Parking outfit - stuart howat

Hello All, I remember some sage advice from this forum in the past and wondered if help is still available, probably from Middleman. We parked in a car park last year. The signage was spa*** and it was during the back end of lockdown and the place was deserted. So we parked, had a mooch about and left. That was 3 March 2021. Then in January this year we received a letter demanding £170 in payment for breaching their rules. We were advised to ignore it, which we did. Today we received a county court document demanding £277. The parking sharks are based in Warrington and the court docs came from Northampton. Need some advice on how to proceed please. Thank you.

Late contact from Private Parking outfit - ExA35Owner

Sadly the "ignore" advice is significantly out of date.

You are better to ask on pepipoo.com which has a good number of real experts who will help you.

Late contact from Private Parking outfit - Bromptonaut

Northampton is home to the Court Service's bulk issue unit and is the point from which most major users issue process.

Whilst ignore used to be OK advice the Supreme Court's decision in a case called Beavis changed that. The parking companies are now much more bullish in chasing these debts. You have though spotted the Court process and realised that ignore is no longer an option. Doing so would open you to default judgement, enforcement and a visit from the Bailiff.

As already advised Pepipoo is good start point for working through whether you have a defence and if so how to 'play' it.

Late contact from Private Parking outfit - Gibbo_Wirral

You need to go to POPLA

www.popla.co.uk/

Late contact from Private Parking outfit - stuart howat

Thank you all for your help. I had thought initially that the parking company were out of time, given the so called offence was in January 21 and the first contact after that was March 22 and now late October 22. Surely they have to serve notice within a reasonable time period, it is very unfair to have this hanging over people all this time. Also is it possible to change the court venue from wherever to North Yorkshire? They are based in Warrington so they may wish to use their local court. Thanks.