3 private parking tickets being pursued for all 3 and had a ccj claim made

[b789]

@Barbudaprince, no, you do not need to have counterclaimed in order to recover your costs if you successfully defend the claim.

A counterclaim would be a separate claim by you against UKCPM for some independent cause of action. Unless you actually have such a claim, there is no reason to worry about not ticking the counterclaim box.

Costs are different. If UKCPM's claim is dismissed, you can ask the judge for the costs you are entitled to under the small-claims rules. That can include your reasonable travel expenses and loss of earnings or loss of leave for attending the hearing, subject to the applicable CPR 27.14 limit. Keep evidence of what each hearing has actually cost you.

More importantly in your particular case, remember what happened on 29 April. That hearing had to be adjourned because the judge did not have the claimant's detailed Particulars and their representative could not demonstrate that they had been properly filed with the court. The judge expressly indicated that the issue could have consequences for costs. So keep a record of the time off work, travel and other expenditure associated with that wasted hearing as well.

There is also CPR 27.14(2)(g), which allows the court to award further costs where a party has behaved unreasonably. That is a higher threshold and is not automatic merely because you win. However, if you ultimately succeed, we can prepare a short costs schedule and ask the judge to consider the claimant's conduct as a whole, including the wasted first hearing and any other unreasonable conduct evidenced by then.

As for their escalating £510 → £650 → £709 figures, you were quite right to ask for a breakdown. They cannot simply recover whatever figure BW Legal happens to put at the top of its latest letter. Ultimately it is the court, not BW Legal, that determines what the claimant is legally entitled to recover.

[Barbudaprince]

So I've just come back from the hearing and in summary: 

1) judge has ordered that I pay £100 for PCN on 13th May as well as £70.00 Claim issue fee: £70.00 and solicitors costs: £70.00 and hearing fee of £49 so grand total of £299. He did not include the debt recovery costs on the basis that the signage did not specify what that amount could be.
1)a) Order is for me to pay by 7th October 2026.
2) the two other PCNs (6th May and 3rd May) fell outside of the enforcement boundary and therefore those claims were dismissed. We spent some time discussing this enforcement boundary matter and I had to show the judge and claimant's solicitor my evidence. The judge advised the claimants solicitor to not overreach on some points for example asking me where I parked now and trying to introduce new evidence.
3) judge didnt agree with period of parking argument stating that each PCN/ Notice to Keeper says: "the period of parking to which this notice relates is the period immediately proceeding the incident time stated above"
3)a) I did try to counter using the points from my witness statement but he wasn't having any of it. His rebuttal was that POFA is prescriptive and doesn't specify that a period of parking or what that period is. Judge was a bit dismissive around some arguments made with both parties it must be said.
4) Judge didn't agree with the signage being unclear. And instead said the parking condition part of the sign is clear and that any user of the site would read that part and then the small print below it.
5) Judge did not agree with the points around the tenancy and in fact said it is irrelevant.
6) Judge stated that parking eye vs bevis has the most legal weighting in this case, and that the other case law referred to was irelevant Brennan because it was a specific scenario and VCS Vs Ian Mark Edward he just said was irrelevant because the claimant was pursuing the keeper. 
7) Judge did say what the claimant's solicior had done to move the parking points to fall inside the boundarywas crude. 
8) there was one point in the start of the hearing where the judge stated that I had said in my defense I had a right to park on the development and I corrected him that I didn't say that, he then asked if I wrote the defense - the cheek! I then had to retract my statement and this interaction through me off.
9) I did also reiterate that the driver had not been identified and therefore this was on the claimant to prove. The judges response was that it is a notice to keeper claim therefore that is irrelevant.I did come back and say again for the reasons in my witness statement why the notice to keeper was not compliant with POFA, and the judge was dismissive of this.

In conclusion bit of a win and lose scenario because the price I am required to pay is still high, and greater than what was offered at the Notice to Keeper stage. But still lower than what I would have had to have paid if all three pcns were upheld.

Thanks for your help. This should help me with my other cases.

[b789]

@Barbudaprince, thanks for the detailed update. Overall, I would regard that as a partial win rather than a defeat. UKCPM pursued three PCNs and only succeeded on one. More importantly, the boundary argument we identified succeeded on the other two, despite BW Legal's rather crude attempt to redraw/thicken the boundary in their later evidence. The judge apparently recognised exactly what they had done and still found those two locations outside the enforcement area.

The £70 debt-recovery add-on was also rejected, which is another worthwhile result. The £299 therefore comprises the single £100 PCN plus the court costs the judge allowed, rather than three PCNs and the inflated additional sums BW Legal had been demanding.

I disagree with some of the judge's reasoning, particularly on PoFA. Paragraph 9(2)(a) expressly requires the NtK to "specify ... the period of parking to which the notice relates". Saying that the relevant period is simply "the period immediately preceding the incident time" identifies no start time and therefore no ascertainable period at all. However, the District Judge has made his finding and, for £299, an appeal would almost certainly be commercially disproportionate unless there were some wider reason for pursuing one.

The tenancy point was also dealt with rather abruptly. The argument was never simply that being a resident automatically gave you an unrestricted right to park anywhere; it concerned the interaction between the pre-existing tenancy terms and UKCPM's alleged later contractual regime. But again, that was the judge's finding on this case.

On Beavis, it is unsurprising that the judge regarded a Supreme Court authority as carrying substantially greater weight than County Court decisions. Brennan and Edward were persuasive authorities only and could be distinguished on their facts. That does not make them generally "irrelevant"; it means this particular judge did not consider them determinative here.

One particularly useful lesson is the boundary evidence. You were absolutely right to preserve and rely upon UKCPM's original map. Had you simply accepted their subsequently altered map, there is every possibility all three PCNs would have been treated as falling within their enforcement area. The fact that the judge stopped their solicitor attempting to overreach and introduce matters beyond the evidence is also significant.

Don't be concerned about the exchange over whether you wrote the defence. Litigants in person are perfectly entitled to obtain assistance preparing their documents. What matters is that the Statement of Truth is yours and that you understand and can explain the case being advanced. You corrected the judge when he attributed something to you that you had not actually said, which was the right thing to do.

So yes, financially it is frustrating because £299 is more than the original single PCN. But UKCPM/BW Legal were seeking considerably more on three charges, two of those charges have been dismissed, their added debt-recovery costs were refused, and their attempt to repair the boundary evidence did not work. It is also worth remembering that this litigation will almost certainly have cost UKCPM considerably more than the costs they have recovered from you. The £70 solicitors' costs awarded by the court are merely the capped recoverable costs; they will certainly not represent BW Legal's actual charges to UKCPM for conducting the litigation, preparing for and attending the hearings. Most importantly, you took the case to a judge, presented the evidence yourself and succeeded on two of the three claims. That experience will be particularly useful with the other live case.

Unfortunately, there is always the unknown element of "judge bingo". You never quite know which judge you are going to get, and different judges can legitimately reach different conclusions or place different weight on particular arguments, provided they remain within the law.

I hope it was nevertheless a worthwhile exercise and gave you some useful first-hand experience of how the court system actually works. If the second case ever proceeds as far as a hearing, you will be much better prepared — and you now potentially have the additional issue of cause of action estoppel arising from the findings already made in this claim.

One final and very important practical point: make sure the £299 judgment is paid in full within one month of the date of judgment. If it is paid in full within that one-month period, the CCJ will not remain registered and should not appear on your credit file. If you allow it to go beyond one month, it will normally remain on the Register and your credit file for six years, even if you subsequently pay it; later payment merely changes its status to "satisfied". So make absolutely sure it is paid within the one-month period and keep proof of payment so no record of the CCJ remains on your file.

Also, although the judge has apparently ordered payment by 7 October 2026, that payment deadline and the one-month CCJ registration rule are two different things. If 7 October is more than one month after the date judgment was given, do not wait until 7 October — pay within the one-month period if you want to ensure the CCJ does not remain on your credit record.