BW Legal court threat for a 6 years old Parking ticket

Maxcens

Hi Everyone,
I received on Friday the 17th of March a letter from BW Legal (on behalf of Excel Parking) notifying me for an alleged parking ticket contracted in February 2011.
These People are threatening me to go to court.
Now I have done my research and it seems that being over 6 years old, this simple contract will be statute barred because of the Limitation act 1980. I would like to point out that I have never talked to this people or the company that they represent during these 6 years. Nor I have made any payments.
Am I right to think that they cannot, indeed, take me to court?
On the other hand, the alleged parking ticket was issued in 2011 before the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 which states that only the driver and not the register keeper is responsible.
Once again, am I safe to think that they cannot inforce any charge to me on this matter?

Finally, I believe that I am right and I would like this nonsense to stop. From what I understand, these people will never stop regardless of the legality of what they say.
This letter has deeply affected me and my family by the amount of stress and worry it brought. Could you help me write to them?

thanks
Max

pogofish

Search for "Bw Legal Pre POFA" in this forum - There are great many threads on how to see them-off. A bit of letter tennis can be involved though.

Post two of the Newbies Sticky also contains some pertinent info and IIRC a Link from Bargepole.

Maxcens

Thank you. I will look into that

Loadsofchildren123

The Limitation Act is a slam dunk. No question. So you need to do nothing other than write to say the claim is statute barred. It quite clearly is. I don't see why you need to get into pre-POFA "I wasn't the driver" arguments. They are irrelevant if it's statute barred.


Write back a one-liner on limitation, and end by saying that any further correspondence from them will be treated as acts of harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act and you will report them to the police.

Loadsofchildren123

If they carry on, report them AND complain to the SRA

Lamilad

Once you've told them that this is 'statute barred' they no longer have reasonable cause to process your data, under Section 10 of the Data Protection Act (DPA). So make sure you inform them of this.

If they do continue to pursue you (and BWL are just about stupid enough to do so) then they are leaving themselves wide open to a 'breach of DPA' claim

Objection to Processing
"You should consider this a Section 10 Notice which gives you 21 days to respond or I will make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Further, if you and/or your client continue to process my data I will seek damages for distress for this continued data protection contravention. Vidal-Hall v Google [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) establishes that misuse of personal data is a tort and that damages for a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) could include non-pecuniary damage. The case of Halliday v Creation Consumer Finance Ltd [2013] All ER (D) 199 provides authority that a reasonable sum for compensation would be £750 so you may consider yourselves and your clients on notice of my intention and the distressing effects on me, of your data mishandling.

As your client has no legal reason to pursue the registered keeper in this case I now consider this matter closed. Do not contact me again save to confirm your compliance with the section 10 notice.”

Maxcens

Perfect, that's exatly what I wanted to see.
I will write a letter and send it out today.
I will let you know what BW legal has to say.
Cheers

Fruitcake

I would have said that in March this year they had no reasonable cause to ask for your data in the first place, so I would fire off a DPA complaint anyway.

I would also want ask the DVLA why they released the data for a statute barred alleged parking incident.

DoaM

Fruitcake wrote: »

I would have said that in March this year they had no reasonable cause to ask for your data in the first place, so I would fire off a DPA complaint anyway.

I would also want ask the DVLA why they released the data for a statute barred alleged parking incident.

Where are you seeing that they sought DVLA data in March this year? Excel may well have sought the data in 2011. (Which opens another can of worms ... why did they hold onto the data for that length of time?)

Fruitcake

DoaM wrote: »

Where are you seeing that they sought DVLA data in March this year? Excel may well have sought the data in 2011. (Which opens another can of worms ... why did they hold onto the data for that length of time?)

Fair point. In which case it might be worth asking the DVLA when the keeper data was applied for.

nigelbb

Excel can only have purchased keeper details back in 2011. As I recall the DVLA allows them to buy the data up to six months after the parking event but no later. For BW Legal to threaten court when there is no possibility of such an action needs a strong complaint to the SRA.