The latest MOJ statistics reveal dangerous levels of CCJs from private parking companies

The latest quarterly statistics show a 48% rise in CCJ's from the same period last year which is unsustainable for our strained county court system - what is going on?

I’m returning to the subject of a blog I wrote a few weeks ago about the dramatic increase in CCJ’s as revealed by the quarterly Ministry of Justice statistics.

I'm revisiting this topic because the most recent Q2 statistics show a huge acceleration in the number of CCJ’s being issued with 327,000 judgments which is on course for 1.3 million total CCJ’s in 2017. This is a 48% increase on the same period last year, which is astonishing and concerning. To be blunt, it's worse than I predicted in my earlier blog.....

This figure added to last years’ 800,000 CCJ’s means over 2 million UK adults will have a huge blight on their credit record for the next six years. Some people who work in finance roles may be sacked and many will be prevented from applying for certain roles. These people will be unable to use any sort of credit, so will not be able to get a mortgage, buy a vehicle, have a mobile phone handset supply contract and will be unable to get loans or credit cards except at prohibitively high rates.

Aside from the cost to consumers and the economy caused by this unexpected consumer stranglehold, the tax payer funded county court system, victim already of swingeing cuts is having to ‘manage’ this vastly increased case load. Small claims matters are taking six weeks longer to reach final hearing than the same time last year, so the impact is immediate and visible.

It is also worth dwelling on the fact that 87% of these CCJ’s were what is called default judgments; which essentially means that the defendant did not respond correctly to the claim with a prompt acknowledgment followed by a defence submission. Such an enormous percentage in favour of claimants does not bode well for ‘justice’ as clearly the system is so intimidating and time critical that people are simply overwhelmed and fail to engage.

It is impossible to say what proportion of these CCJ’s are paid off within 30 days of judgment thus avoiding the CCJ sitting on file for six years, but the very fact that 87% of the defendants allowed the claim to go to default judgment would strongly hint that they were unable to physically pay the amount demanded.

Out of the 457,000 total specified money claims last year, 327,000 resulted in judgment for the claimant either by default or hearing. Therefore 130,000 claims were ‘paid upon receipt’ presumably by people being able to admit and pay the sum due.

But why this sudden increase in claims issued through the Moneyclaim online court system?

In a nutshell, private parking companies. Until the Supreme Court decision regarding the case of Parking Eye v Barry Beavis, there was genuine legal uncertainty over the enforceability of these private tickets. However, the Supreme Court found in favour of the parking companies and since then the floodgates literally opened.

The internet is still awash with ‘Private Parking Companies – You don’t have to pay’ nonsense but I’m afraid to report that our independent judiciary enforce these judgments every day in their thousands.

While this ‘gold rush’ is in full flow, these companies are not likely to slow down their actions. A barrister did successfully challenge them recently, but using fairly exceptional circumstances and critically, the parking company did not themselves attend court or send counsel, so the defendant won by default; which genuinely is not the same as a case that has been thrashed out thoroughly at a hearing. You enter a carpark, you read a sign telling you what to pay, you decide to park based upon that ‘contract’. Offer, consideration, acceptance. Yes, you can challenge bad signage and other similar problems but you will face a long fight through the courts, not many normal people fancy that.

We need a new and separate system for parking enforcement which keeps these £60 claims out of our overburdened county courts. It costs £25 to file a £60 court claim for a bulk user like a parking company, the same as for an individual user. Double your money for little risk using template court forms and computer generated evidence. The impact on the individuals on the receiving end is enormously destructive. Many carparks have poor signage and ‘trap’ car drivers into tickets even when no spaces have been available. The playing field is not level and it is capturing a whole new class of victim, including pensioners who find signage very confusing or are unable to use new telephone/computer payment systems.

In any event, allowing for the whole six-year period a CCJ sits on file, we could easily reach 12% of the working population of the UK with a CCJ and be unable to financially grow or contribute for those six long years.

Is that really proportionate justice for driving into the wrong car park or being unable to manage the arduous online court system?

Former consumer litigator Kate Briscoe is CEO and co-founder of LegalBeagles.info and also the fastest growing legal comparison site JustBeagle.com.

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There is plenty of advice available for responding to court claims for example this guide from National Debtline  or guides from Citizens Advice