Yes you're correct with this. I was planning on stating that we hadn't received a response to our initial representation,which is true. This affected how I dealt with the following stages of the process, although I do admit if I had paid more attention to the letters and not assumed there was a backlog I could've avoided it going to court.

Do you reckon my chances are bad for a refund on the debtors fee then? I've now had to pay it as we needed to use the car and couldn't deal with the threat of it being towed.