How to challenge a CCJ: ‘I overstayed car park by three minutes and ended up with debt

When dad-of-two Matthew Pollen from North London realised he had been handed a County Court Judgement without his knowledge, he undertook the painful task of getting it removed.

A CCJ is a court order in England and Wales. It compels someone to repay a debt they owe, and it can hugely damage credit scores and stifle the ability to obtain credit.

Matt’s CCJ came after he overstayed at a car park by three minutes – and a subsequent parking charge notice from a private company went to an old address.

As a result of his stressful experience, he has set up ChallengeCCJ, where those who find themselves in a similar boat can either use a free template to challenge the debt marker – or pay £50 to most of the legwork done for them.

Parking headache: Matthew Pollen’s PCN led to a CCJ that ruined his credit score 

Surprise CCJ hit my credit score

I never thought I’d end up with a CCJ against my name. I didn’t fully know what one was before it was marked against me.

Last August, I was checking my credit score as my wife and I were looking at options to remortgage.

To my horror saw that my score, which had always been good/excellent, was now in the 200s (ie very bad).

My first reaction, like most people who discover a CCJ in this way, was: what on earth is going on? This must be a mistake. I’ll give them (whoever them is) a ring and sort it out.

And so began my journey down the stress and anxiety filled road to getting my CCJ set aside (removed from my record for those who don’t understand legal parlance).

And here was my first lesson, none of the language made any sense.

N244 form, Draft Order, Witness Statement, EX160 form, Claim Form, Subject Access Request (SAR), Default Judgement, Set Aside, Consent Order… the list goes on, it was like trying to learn a new language just to wrap your head around what you had to do next.

Honest mistake led to a CCJ 

How did I end up with a CCJ without knowing about it? Surely I received plenty of letters warning me?

Well, plenty of letters were sent, unfortunately they all went to my old address.

The original Parking Charge Notice was for picking my son up from nursery in December 2022. We stayed for 33 minutes in the car park, you get 30 minutes for free unless the nursery validates your stay, and off we went not actually realising we had overstayed by 3 minutes.

We had moved from our old address the previous month and hadn’t updated our V5C. It’s a common mistake and easily done.

We forgot due to the stressful house sale and moving into rented accommodation for a short period of time.

Now, a V5C isn’t a valid proof of address, all it does is show the registered keeper, as you could register a car at a family members or business address. However, this is all the parking company relied on to send the PCN. I wasn’t even sure if it was me or my partner driving that day.

The British Parking Association (which regulates Private Parking Operators) states in its ‘code’ that ‘reasonable endeavours’ must be undertaken to locate the driver which includes ‘contacting credit reference agencies to undertake a ‘soft credit check’.

I have multiple emails from the parking company saying they did undertake a ‘trace’ as they call it.

I had proof from my credit report that my updated address was showing on my credit file in both December 2022 and January 2023, so if they had carried out a trace in March (as they said they did) they would have discovered my new address.

Due to their uncooperative nature I had to submit a SAR, basically legally obliging them to give me all the data they had on me.

Lo and behold, no credit check. But that would have been carried out by our debt resolution partner they said.

I ring them with the not very nice lady on the other side saying: ‘we don’t need to do that, all we need to do is send it to the address on the V5C’. A ha, gotcha I think. They have just admitted that they don’t do a credit search. Surely this should be simple now.

Not the case. The parking company offer me a deal, I pay the original PCN as well as the court costs for a consented set aside (this is cheaper at £119 and means that there doesn’t have to be a court date because both sides have agreed to set the judgement aside).

No chance.

The original PCN I wouldn’t have had to pay I tell them as I would have had the ticket validated if I received it, and there is no way I am paying court costs for something that shouldn’t have even happened.

See you in court they say.

Over a million CCJs are issued every year 

Countless days were spent scouring through forums and Facebook groups, looking for examples I could follow and people who had been through a similar thing. And there were lots.

Over a million CCJs are issued every year, and 93 per cent of these are default judgements (meaning the defendant didn’t respond to the claim form as was the case with myself).

They even make it hard to just find out who has issued the CCJ against you.

You have to pay the Registry Trust £6 just to get the claim number and then you have to ring up the Civil National Business Centre (CNBC) to find out who and what it relates to (after spending over an hour in the queue).

Amazingly when you then want to submit your set aside application (which is your N244 form, Draft Order and Witness Statement), you have to email it over first and then call them up to pay the £303 fee (again after waiting over an hour in the queue).

The only reason I am able to spend the time doing this is because I am on paternity leave, and looking back, if this hadn’t been the case I would probably have folded and just taken the deal that was offered in order to get it over and done with as soon as possible. 

You’re not automatically given a court date either, the average time is around 50 weeks.

I got lucky, I submitted my set aside application in October and my court date was in March, so only the 6 month wait. And guess what? They didn’t even turn up!

That doesn’t mean I was awarded an automatic set aside (which I believe should be the case if they can’t be bothered to turn up), and I still had to argue all of my points that I had outlined in my witness statement.

Eventually the Judge agreed to the set aside and ordered that they pay back my costs of £303 within 14 days. Have I received that money yet? Of course I haven’t.

Why is all this important?

Well, you have a system that seems to be designed to make it as difficult as possible for people to challenge unfair judgements and allows parking companies to hand out CCJs willy nilly.

And the disproportionate impact it has on people’s lives is crazy. I have spoken to people who have had to live at home as they are unable to rent or get a mortgage, been unable to apply for certain jobs or get phone contracts all over a missed £2.50 parking ticket.

The stress and anxiety this causes takes over your life, it occupies your mental space 24/7 and it basically puts your life on hold for 6 years (a CCJ stays on your record for 6 years). 

That’s why I have created Challenge CCJ, an AI tool to make it easier for people to fight unfair CCJs without the stress and confusion of just trying to understand what to do next.

It helps people to determine if they can challenge their CCJ and generates the right legal documents for them, step by step. No solicitors, no expensive legal fees—just a simple, effective way to fight back.

If you’ve been hit with a CCJ you didn’t know about, don’t panic—you can challenge it. And you don’t have to do it alone.

As told to Angharad Carrick

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