To ask for advice - legal / driving DH being taken to claims court

American and UK date formats could be to blame if this is the case....
Eg 11.06.22 instead of 06.11.22

Forward all this info onto the solicitor again?? Or phone the court direct and ask if it’s a scam?

Aren’t minutes of meetings taken and attendees listed?

My elderly parents had something like this but the police were involved. It turns out their car number plate had been cloned.

good luck

I feel for you. A year ago, some maniac careered down our road in the middle of the night, hitting my parked car and shunting it into my neighbour's parked car which hit a lamp post. He wrote off 2 cars plus his own. My husband was woken by the crash, went downstairs in time to film him running away from the scene. Husband phoned the police, shared photos etc. all info went to our insurance co who paid me something for my year old to me car. It was all a giant pita, expensive and inconvenient.
Just now, a year later, my insurance co have emailed wanting to know if we will appear in the small claims court because he alleged I PULLED OUT IN FRONT OF HIS RIGHTFULLY DRIVEN CAR!!! AT 3 IN THE MORNING!!
We said yes because we don't want him to get away with it.
But like you, I can't believe we are having to disprove something that didn't happen!
I'm amazed the industry hasn't got smarter ways of dealing with these chancers.
Good luck with it.

You can find out car colour by looking up registration. A court will throw it out. I can't believe a solicitor thinks they have a case.

1. She has no photos of your car nor the damage to her own.
2. You have some evidence to show you were 300 miles away.

I had someone claim I scraped their car. They couldn't prove it was me and the case was closed. I was sympathetic as it was a nasty scrape. If they'd pursued it privately they would have had to prove I'd done the damage which they couldn't. The onus is on the woman to prove it.

Talk to his insurers. My insurance company took another insurance company to court .

Agree re the number plate. V easy to misremember and take it down wrong. I did , but remembered the name of the company on the vehicle so it / the driver could be traced.

Yes definitely do this. The IT person for his company should be able to get this for you or someone at his company who arranged the meeting. If you have just one meeting record it will show he couldn't have been 300 miles away. This must be such an awful worry for you.

You can see what's happened, some poor lady has been in an accident and in a state of shock took down the registration incorrectly. She probably totally believes she is right, although strange her solicitor didn't respond to the request for more information about the colour of the car etc. I have to admit that makes me suspicious. Either way I'm sure from the previous back and forth between the insurance companies and their conclusion, it must have been obvious it wasn't your dh. I truly hope you can get the meeting records so you can sort it out once and for all. Good luck.

Data on his computer will support that he was not the offender, unless he works whilst he drives.

I'm not sure the DVLA will just hand out addresses to individuals with no evidence. Where I work we had a debt collector letter turned up claiming that car by registration "XXXX" owed a certain amount in a car parking fine. I contacted the DVLA to ask about the address for this car and they sent a letter confirming that it was not registered to our address, but they said under GDPR they couldn't give the new address for me to forward their fine onto.

maybe if he sent any texts on that day or SMS type messages you can get the data from those showing where he was.

What you need to do now is get a solicitor and counter claim for loss of earnings for the days you need to attend court. Show any evidence you have at the time and confirmation that the insurers closed due to lack of contact. They'll have any logs of your tracking at the time etc and work logs.

I'm wondering if it's anything to do with this driving scam OP, discussed on a recent edition of R4 You and Yours. Probs worth a listen and maybe contact them, they often sort people's hassles, this sounds like a mega hassle to me, link to episode below, they discuss 3 or 4 different issues each time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yxfy?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Apply to have the matter transferred to your local court.

write to her saying 1. You must be mistaken I have never driven there and 2. Give me the evidence you have to say it was us.

check the dates- she only has 3 years to file her claim otherwise she’s out of time and you have a limitation defence

make sure you file your papers in time- acknowledgment of service and defence.

gather as much evidence as you can- your file to your insurers will be part of it- emails saying “I wasn’t there” etc all tells a consistent story

dig in - don’t be scared of her- she does have to prove it was you

oh and try your insurers again- just because they closed the file doesn’t mean they don’t have a responsibility to reopen it- in fact, they probably do

12k of damage , trying it on....I think insurance companies right off the car if the cost to repair is over half the cars value it will be written off....So wondering if the aggrieved party was insured fully comprehensive, & if so her insurance would have paid her out. Your husband does need a solicitor and say if he was trying to get away with it, why would he even bother to attend court. There are lots of unsavoury people about who will go to great lengths to make money....in other words, scum, pond life.
I really hope it's all sorted soon and the truth will prevail. Good luck

I worked doing personal injury law for several years and to me this sounds like a scam. Unless the other driver recorded the registration incorrectly.

My elderly parents were sent a court summons as their postman claimed he had hurt his hand while putting post through their letterbox and had to have 6 months off work. They clearly remember the day in question, the postman never knocked on their door , nor was there any blood!

Check your house insurance and see if you have legal expenses cover. Annoying as it may seem you may have to employ a solicitor to deal with the claim.

Last year DH was checking something on his car insurance docs online and discovered that there was a claim against him. He knew nothing about it and had not been contacted by insurance comp to discuss. Luckily, the ‘supposed’ crash had taken place in previous 2 weeks, over 100 miles from our home, when DH was working from home, in an area he had never been. Luckily, we have very good CCTV which saved data for 2 weeks and this showed that car had not left drive all day. Turns out name given was not his, and, although, it was our car’s reg, it was wrong vehicle make and colour. Insurance comp were useless. DH just told them to tell claimant we would see them in court. Never heard from them again.

Insurance worker here.

This unfortunately is very common. I think in this situation it's just a case of mistaken identity likely 1 digit being wrong in the registration. If it was cloning there would be other evidence like parking fines or tolls not paid.

In this case it seems that it's the claimant solicitors being utterly useless. You have good evidence to show it wasn't your DH they have done nothing for 3 years and as it's coming up to limitation they've issued proceedings on the only details they had. They would've 100% got your address from the DVLA.

Make sure you are in constant updates with your insurers they will appoint a solicitor to defend it. Ask them to confirm a defence has been submitted hopefully you will have contact with the actual solicitor as well. I feel like it should be easy one to resolve but then saying that it shouldn't have got this far!

Your insurer should just defend the proceedings for you. I wouldn’t worry. Just make sure they get all the docs from you and respond in time.

given they already know and investigated - did they inspect DH’s car at the time? Which presumably had no damage? Because that will be very useful evidence all by itself that your car didn’t cause £12k worth of damage!

if this is just the claim form, it won’t have been allocated to a track yet - in other words the court hasn’t decided whether it will be a small claim (or fast track). The limit for the small claims track is £10k, but frankly things that are just over get allocated to the small claims track all the time. But all of that is just technical stuff, that you don’t need to worry about - because your insurer should instruct a solicitor to defend it. And if by some bizarre twist you lose, your insurer will pick up the tab.

Did you happen to have that car MOT’d at any point, it will show mileage done on there.

I have google timeline and it logs where I’ve been, not sure if this would be proof enough?

Maybe look at your whole week, places you’ve been or paid by card/withdrawing money, filling up with fuel, showing how it would be impossible to drive that far from your location and make it there/back in the possible timeframe.

Payslips? A log with work of him logging onto his computer from home?

If it is a money claim do not just ignore this. You need to file the acknowledgement of service. Then a defence. If you don't within the relevant deadlines she could request judgment.

Wouldn't at least some of those meetings be minuted or even recorded?

I don't think this claim is going to go anywhere. The claimant is going to have to say exactly when the accident is supposed to have happened and to give a description of the driver involved, in addition to explaining what damage was allegedly done and why she didn't get it repaired. She's clearly reluctant to do that because she knows that will disprove her case, but she will have no choice. You should also look into getting the case transferred to your local court, the inconvenience and expense of that alone may well put her off.

@Grainyawaydays - I'd suggest you put to one side the suggestions to contact the police, or to call the court to see if the claim is genuine, or to start looking into it yourselves. No doubt they're well-intentioned suggestions but I'd be concerned that they might compromise your husband's insurance cover.

ALL that your husband needs to do at this stage is (1) to inform whoever was his insurer at the time of this alleged accident that he's received a claim, and (2) pass ALL current and future correspondence relating to this claim to his insurer at the time. (It might be the same insurer that he has now or it might not. you haven't said).

He doesn't need a lawyer, he doesn't need to start investigating it himself and he doesn't need to meddle in his insurer's handling of the claim. (They are professionals and don't like paying out fake claims. They are experts at recognising and investigating them - you and your husband are not. Don't jeapordise the insurance cover by doing anything more than letting the insurance company deal with ALL of it).

Your husband must have been paying insurance premiums for years - it's exactly this service he was paying for. Let the insurer deal with it and don't interfere at all.

NB - You and your husband are no doubt concerned that the claim is issued against him personally. If he is the person that the claimant is alleging caused the alleged accident then of course he's the person being sued. But the whole point of a motor insurance policy is that if you - personally - get sued, then your insurer steps in to defend the claim on your behalf and you don't need to stress out about it. That's what an insurance policy is. What you don't do is not inform your insurer, lose the case, and then try to claim on your insurance. You have to let them deal with it from the outset

Check your phone location on that day ? Any photos or similar ? Any card spending , any emails where the IP can be traced ?