10-13-2026, 03:08 PM
@Rosa23, do not waste any further time contacting DCBL. They are merely debt collectors and have no useful role in resolving this situation.
The immediate priority is to establish the details of the County Court Judgment (CCJ), which appears to have been obtained by default without you ever receiving the Letter of Claim (LoC) or the N1SDT Claim Form.
We do not yet know whether ParkingEye issued the claim themselves or instructed DCB Legal to act on their behalf. That should become clear once you have obtained the court documents.
Your first task, and this is URGENT, is to telephone the Civil National Business Centre (CNBC) on 0300 123 1056 TODAY.
If you cannot get through today, telephone first thing tomorrow morning, preferably at around 8:30am, when the lines open.
You need to establish:
Also request copies of the original claim form and default judgment.
The reason this is so urgent... If the CCJ is more than one calendar month old, it will ordinarily remain on the Register of Judgments for six years unless set aside, even if subsequently paid in full.
As ParkingEye has already passed the matter to DCBL for collection, I suspect that the judgment may already be more than a month old.
You should therefore be looking to have the judgment set aside under CPR 13.2, which requires the court to set aside a default judgment where it was wrongly entered (mandatory set aside).
Under CPR 6.9, where a claimant has reason to believe the defendant no longer resides at the address being used for service, it must take reasonable steps to ascertain their current address. If ParkingEye failed to comply and the claim form was not validly served, that provides the basis for a mandatory set-aside.
However, before incurring the £321 fee for a contested application, I would first give ParkingEye, or DCB Legal if they issued the claim on ParkingEye's behalf, an opportunity to agree to a set-aside by consent, entirely at their expense. A consent application costs £126, considerably less than a contested application.
Once we have the claim details, we can send the appropriate party a formal request requiring them to:
The request will make clear that, should they refuse or fail to respond within those seven working days, you intend to make a contested application under CPR 13.2, seeking an order that the claimant reimburse the £321 application fee and any other recoverable costs.
Those costs are ultimately at the court's discretion, but offering the claimant an opportunity to resolve the matter reasonably before making a contested application will strengthen the argument for recovering them.
Do not pay DCBL, do not agree to pay the underlying parking charge, and do not agree to bear the costs of correcting a judgment obtained through defective service.
There is no guarantee that ParkingEye will cooperate, so we should be ready to submit the N244 application promptly if necessary. If enforcement becomes imminent (unlikely for a claim under £600), we should not wait for the seven-working-day deadline to expire.
For now, your absolute priority is to obtain the information from CNBC. Please report back as soon as you have it, particularly the claim issue date, judgment date, service address, identity of the party handling the litigation and the Particulars of Claim (PoC).
We can then prepare the formal request for consent to set aside the judgment at the claimant's expense.
The immediate priority is to establish the details of the County Court Judgment (CCJ), which appears to have been obtained by default without you ever receiving the Letter of Claim (LoC) or the N1SDT Claim Form.
We do not yet know whether ParkingEye issued the claim themselves or instructed DCB Legal to act on their behalf. That should become clear once you have obtained the court documents.
Your first task, and this is URGENT, is to telephone the Civil National Business Centre (CNBC) on 0300 123 1056 TODAY.
If you cannot get through today, telephone first thing tomorrow morning, preferably at around 8:30am, when the lines open.
You need to establish:
1. The claim number.
2. The date the claim was issued.
3. The address to which the claim form was sent.
4. The date the default judgment was entered.
5. The identity of the claimant's legal representative, if any.
6. The amount of the judgment.
2. The date the claim was issued.
3. The address to which the claim form was sent.
4. The date the default judgment was entered.
5. The identity of the claimant's legal representative, if any.
6. The amount of the judgment.
Also request copies of the original claim form and default judgment.
The reason this is so urgent... If the CCJ is more than one calendar month old, it will ordinarily remain on the Register of Judgments for six years unless set aside, even if subsequently paid in full.
As ParkingEye has already passed the matter to DCBL for collection, I suspect that the judgment may already be more than a month old.
You should therefore be looking to have the judgment set aside under CPR 13.2, which requires the court to set aside a default judgment where it was wrongly entered (mandatory set aside).
Under CPR 6.9, where a claimant has reason to believe the defendant no longer resides at the address being used for service, it must take reasonable steps to ascertain their current address. If ParkingEye failed to comply and the claim form was not validly served, that provides the basis for a mandatory set-aside.
However, before incurring the £321 fee for a contested application, I would first give ParkingEye, or DCB Legal if they issued the claim on ParkingEye's behalf, an opportunity to agree to a set-aside by consent, entirely at their expense. A consent application costs £126, considerably less than a contested application.
Once we have the claim details, we can send the appropriate party a formal request requiring them to:
• Agree to the default judgment being set aside by consent.
• Pay the £126 application fee themselves.
• Cooperate in submitting the necessary consent order to the court.
• Confirm their agreement within seven working days of receipt of the request.
• Suspend all debt collection and enforcement activity pending resolution.
• Pay the £126 application fee themselves.
• Cooperate in submitting the necessary consent order to the court.
• Confirm their agreement within seven working days of receipt of the request.
• Suspend all debt collection and enforcement activity pending resolution.
The request will make clear that, should they refuse or fail to respond within those seven working days, you intend to make a contested application under CPR 13.2, seeking an order that the claimant reimburse the £321 application fee and any other recoverable costs.
Those costs are ultimately at the court's discretion, but offering the claimant an opportunity to resolve the matter reasonably before making a contested application will strengthen the argument for recovering them.
Do not pay DCBL, do not agree to pay the underlying parking charge, and do not agree to bear the costs of correcting a judgment obtained through defective service.
There is no guarantee that ParkingEye will cooperate, so we should be ready to submit the N244 application promptly if necessary. If enforcement becomes imminent (unlikely for a claim under £600), we should not wait for the seven-working-day deadline to expire.
For now, your absolute priority is to obtain the information from CNBC. Please report back as soon as you have it, particularly the claim issue date, judgment date, service address, identity of the party handling the litigation and the Particulars of Claim (PoC).
We can then prepare the formal request for consent to set aside the judgment at the claimant's expense.
Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. - Mark Twain
