BW Legal - Offer Letter to Settle

beamerguy wrote: »

Of course, the typical BWLegal wheeze

BWLegal is like a bad book, with only a few pages inside

Tell your friends about this forum, great for motorists and
very bad for scammers

Yes indeed, I feel like going on a social media rampage!

Umkomaas wrote: »

Time to send a costs order request to the court.

Liability for costs. Unless the court orders otherwise, a claimant who discontinues is liable for the costs which a defendant against whom the claimant discontinues incurred on or before the date on which notice of discontinuance was served on the defendant.

justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part38

This is very interesting, I was reading this when I received my Notice to Discontinue.

I am not sure what I could class as costs aside from Postage? I'll check out 44.9 here justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part-44-general-rules-about-costs

OK, I have drafted the following to claim costs - please note I will add details about my medical issue as its confidential and the costs are estimates, would happily take feedback on the wording:

__________________________________________


Urgent Matter - to be referred to Procedural Judge.

In the matter of

BW Legal v Mr Stanley Howe
Claim Number XXXXXXXX


Dear Sir or Madam,

Since originally being issued with a PCN dated XX/XX/XXXX I have came under increasing pressure to pay a PCN fee by BW Legal. They have issued at least 4 letters to me over the course of the last 12 months, threatening court action if I didn’t comply.

Following these numerous items of correspondence BW Legal began County Court action against me on XX June 2017. Throughout this process I had spent the following time on the case:

i. 2 hours preparing my appeal
ii. 10 hours researching the appropriate law
iii. 2 hours preparing my witness statements
iv. 3 hours writing my defence & visiting the site for photos


BW Legal eventually got as far as having a court date set for XX/XX/XXXX. Whilst approaching this court date they followed up with an offer letter dated XX/XX/XXXX to settle for £165 rather than £275.50. In this letter they informed me that their client thinks ‘my defence is unlikely to succeed' which turns out to be completely unsupported and deceiving. Once the deadline of XX/XX/XXXX to pay this ‘offer’ had passed they quickly followed up with a Notice of Discontinuation. Based on this it is clear that their only intention was to acquire monies rather than actually take this case to court and prove their case.

Throughout the last 3 years this case had caused unnecessary stress and pressure on me which in turn has caused a flare up in my disease XXXXXXXXX. Further explanation here.

Based on everything detailed above I refer to CPR r.38.6 which states that the claimant is liable for the defendant's costs after discontinuance (r.38.6(1)) but that this does not apply to claims allocated to the small claims track (r.38.6(3)). However, the white book states (annotation 38.6.1): "Note that the normal rule as to costs does not apply if a claimant in a case allocated to the small claims track serves a notice of discontinuance although it might be contended that costs should be awarded if a party has behaved unreasonably (r.27.14(2)(d))."

On this basis I would like to request a costs order to be made against the Claimant given that BW Legal has behaved unreasonably by discontinuing this claim and sending letters of an unsupported and deceiving nature.

The Defendant had significant costs to prepare the Defence and prepare attendance of the hearing and the costs claimed are as follows:


Schedule of costs

Drafting original appeal as litigant in person @£18 per hour, (N.B. I think this is £19 now)
2 hours. Total £36

Researching law as litigant in person @£18 per hour, (N.B. I think this is £19 now)
10 hours. Total £180.

Preparing witness statements as litigant in person @£18 per hour, (N.B. I think this is £19 now)
2 hours. Total £36.

Preparing defence and acquiring photos of the car park site as litigant in person @£18 per hour, (N.B. I think this is £19 now)
3 hours. Total £54.

Total costs claimed £306


Yours faithfully,


XXXXXXXX
XX/XX/XXXX