BW Legal Court Claims - Help with defense

NikiFm_2

Hello all, last month I received an LBC (as seen above) from BW legal instructing me they would be would be taking me to court regarding two separate incidents at one location Dating December 2015. I sent them a reply which can you find above.

They replied to my letter with their reasoning and photo evidence which can be seen below and on the 14th of September I have received two Northampton court claims. They are claiming for £250 per claim.

LBC BW LEGAL REPLY: hxxps://imgur.com/a/5JZUbu8

Photo evidence:
hxxps://imgur.com/a/KDZ0Ew0

I have very little time left now to respond and I feel at lose ends, reading the majority of other peoples defenses I feel like I have no leg to stand on. The matter arose because on both incidents I didn't pay & display a ticket, this was due to the ticket machine was broken and it was not taking card payments it was only taking coins ( photo proof attached) I couldn't pay with coins and had thought I had paid via the pay and go service however have no confirmation of this. Do I have any room for defense with my claim or should I pay their extortionate fee? I'm so upset and stressed out with how a total of £2.20 in parking is now £500+. Is there anyway I can defend this?

Thanks

The_Deep

have received two Northampton court claims. They are claiming for £250 per claim.

Way over the top. Even if they won, which is not very likely as they are incompetent, the most a judge is just is likely to award is iro £175 - £200

reading the majority of other peoples defenses I feel like I have no leg to stand on.

On the contrary, this is a law firm who would have difficulty organising festivities in a brewery. If you could not pay because the ticket machine would not take your payment there could be no contract, therefore you cannot be in breach of contract.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P.
for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the House of Commons recently

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41 recently.

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.

Le_Kirk

Your images made live: -
https://imgur.com/a/5JZUbu8
https://imgur.com/a/KDZ0Ew0

beamerguy

Le_Kirk wrote: »

Your images made live: -
https://imgur.com/a/5JZUbu8
https://imgur.com/a/KDZ0Ew0

"£130 remains unpaid for a parking charge" ?????

£130 BWLegal, you must mean £100 .... don't you ????

The £60 ...... different fabrication for different folks

* ADMIN FEE
* CONTRACTUAL FEE
* INSTRUCTIONS FEE .... as in the OP's case

What actually is it BWLegal ? ...... It's the boring
£60 add-on fake fee from a debt collector.

With such a mish mash of fake info, no wonder they
lose in court, the judges must be laughing at them

NikiFm_2

Right! I am feeling less stressed this afternoon after finding a previous defence used as an example under the sticky threads. The template I've used as is so similar to my case it's uncanny. Can someone read through the defence below and let me know if it's okay?

NikiFm_2

"I am xxxxxxx, Defendant in this matter and I assert that the Claimant has no cause for action for the following reasons:

1.It is admitted that the Defendant was the authorised registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.
2. It is believed that it will be a matter of common ground that claim relates to a purported debt as the result of the issue of a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) in relation to an alleged breach of the terms and conditions by the driver of the vehicle xxxx xxx when it was parked in Dean Clarke House, Southernhay, Exeter.

3. The PCN stated the contravention as “No ticket displayed.” This cannot be a contravention when a driver uses the Pay by Phone option, as I did.

4. It is denied that:

a. A contract was formed, and it is further denied that any contravention of ''no ticket displayed'' occurred or can have occurred when using the Pay by Phone option, the failure of which was not communicated to me nor was it within my control. Even if a contract was potentially formed it was frustrated by the unexpected and uncommunicated failure of the Claimant's app, and it is trite law that no party can be held liable for breach to another under such circumstances of frustration of contract.

b. There was any agreement to pay a parking charge.

c. That there were Terms and Conditions prominently displayed around the site which communicated any additional punitive parking charge (effectively a private 'fine') in large lettering, in a clear and concise way, on a par with the tariff signs where the fees were advertised in the largest font. By contrast, the 'parking charge' is positively buried in small print, contrary to Lord Denning's 'Red Hand Rule' and contrary to the requirements of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

d. That in addition to the parking charge there was any agreement to pay additional and unspecified additional sums, which are in any case unsupported by the Beavis case and unsupported for cases on the small claims track.

e. The claimant company fully complied with their obligations within the International Parking Community Code of Practice of which they were member at the time.

f. The RingGo app, being indisputably an offer of a 'distance contract', complied with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which says:

''Confirmation of distance contracts: 16.—(1) In the case of a distance contract the trader must give the consumer confirmation of the contract on a durable medium.
(2) The confirmation must include all the information referred to in Schedule 2 unless the trader has already provided that information to the consumer on a durable medium prior to the conclusion of the distance contract.
(3) If the contract is for the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium and the consumer has given the consent and acknowledgment referred to in regulation 37(1)(a) and (b), the confirmation must include confirmation of the consent and acknowledgement.''

5. It is further denied that the Defendant is liable for the purported debt.

Rebuttal of Claim;
6. The Defendant made all reasonable efforts available to them to make payment for parking by using an approved payment channel.
a. Due to the pay station being out of order for card transactions the only possible payment the defendant could make was via telephone using a cashless system provided by RingGo.
b. This is a distance contract which requires certain information to be supplied in advance.
c. The service makes no provision for the printing of a ticket to display.
d. The Defendant followed the RingGo instructions exactly as shown on the signage at the payment machine.
e. The payment channel did not indicate any failure to make payment and responded as if payment had been made. As such the Defendant believed the necessary payment had been made.
f. The failure of the payment service to accept payment is not the Defendants responsibility. It is not reasonable in these circumstances for the driver to assume any more obligations for making the payment.
In Jolley v Carmel Ltd [2000] 2 –EGLR -154, it was held that a party who makes reasonable endeavours to comply with contractual terms, should not be penalised for breach when unable to fully comply with the terms.

7. The Defendant did not enter into any 'agreement on the charge', no consideration flowed between the parties and no contract was established.

8. The Defendant denies that they would have agreed to pay the original demand of £100 to agree to the alleged contract had the terms and conditions of the contract been properly displayed and accessible.
a. The amount demanded is excessive and unreasonable, especially so when compared to the level of Penalty Charge Notice issued by the local Council which is set at £50 or £25 if paid within 14 days.

9. The signage on this site was inadequate to form a contract with the motorist.
a. The size of font of the prices advised for parking is much larger than the font of the contract and the offer is not sufficiently brought to the attention of the motorist, nor are the onerous terms (the £100 parking charge) sufficiently prominent to satisfy Lord Dennings "red hand rule”.
b. In the absence of ‘adequate notice’ of the terms and the charge (which must be in large prominent letters such as the brief, clear and multiple signs in the Beavis case) this fails to meet the requirements of Schedule 4 of the POFA.
c. Where contract terms have different meanings, as in this instance when a paper ticket was not issued due to the chosen method of payment, then Section 69 of the CRA 2015 provides a statutory form of the contra proferentem rule, such that the consumer must be given the benefit of the doubt.
The term is fundamental to the contract, and the Defendant invites the Court to find that it is not transparent and therefore unfair. If a fundamental term to the contract is deemed to be unfair, then the contract will cease to bind the parties. The Defence invites the Court to take these issues into account in determining the fairness of the term.


10. The Claimant’s representatives, BW Legal, have artificially inflated the value of the Claim from £100 to £255.04. The Defendant submits the added costs have not actually been incurred by the Claimant; that these are figures plucked out of thin air and applied regardless of facts.
a. If the “parking charge” listed in the particulars of claim is to be considered a written agreement between Defendant and Claimant then under 7.3, the particulars fail to include “a copy of the contract or documents constituting the agreement”.
b. The Claimant has at no time provided an explanation how the sum has been calculated, the conduct that gave rise to it or how the amount has climbed from £100 to £255.04. This appears to be an added cost with no apparently no qualification and an attempt at double recovery, which the POFA Schedule 4 specifically disallows.
b. The Protection of Freedom Act Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper.

11. The Defendant invites the court to strike out or dismiss the claim under Rule 3.4(2)(a) of PRACTICE DIRECTION 3A as having not set out a concise statement of the nature of the claim or disclosed reasonable grounds or particulars for bringing a claim (Part 16.4(1)(a) and PRACTICE DIRECTION 16 paragraphs 3.1-3.8). In C3GF84Y (Mason, Plymouth County Court), the judge struck out the claim brought by KBT Cornwall Ltd as Gladstones Solicitors had not submitted proper Particulars of Claim, and similar reasons were cited by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 where another relevant poorly pleaded private parking charge claim by Gladstones was struck out without a hearing due to their ‘roboclaim’ particulars being incoherent, failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''. The Practice Direction also sets out the following example which is analogous to this claim: ‘those which set out no facts indicating what the claim is about, for example ‘Money owed £5000’.’

12. The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service have identified over one thousand similar poorly produced claims and the solicitors conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

13. The Defendant believes the terms for such conduct are ‘robo claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. The Defendant has reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to their significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

14. The Defendant respectfully suggests that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the Courts should be seen to support.

15. The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant is wholly unreasonable and vexatious.

16. The Defendant invites the court to dismiss this claim out as it is in breach of pre court protocols in relation to the particulars of claim under Practice Direction 16, set out by the Ministry of Justice and also Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) under 16.4 and to allow such Defendant’s costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14.

I believe the facts stated in this Defence Statement are true.


Signed: xxxxxxxxxxxx

Coupon-mad

on the 14th of September I have received two Northampton court claims

I have very little time left now to respond

Wow, yes you do, well into October if you do the easy MCOL acknowledgment x 2, why have you not simply done the online AOS yet for both of them and extended your time by another 14 days? It basic stuff in the NEWBIES thread 2nd post, and you do that first using MCOL, to buy time to breathe.

What is uncanny is the ten other PPS claims on here, have you really not yet found any of these in the months you've been here reading threads?

earth_moon626 - they also have 2 claims from PPS, just like yours

elithia - another newbie with 2 PPS claims and plenty of time, like you do

phoenixfreespirit - her PPS PCNs also show as £130 - this error was discussed on her thread recently, so get reading to understand the issue (BPA CoP breach)

Prinndogs

SingStar101

Justice13075

bows

Matilda13

Palec

Cawills2018

ALL are at exactly the same stage with PPS claims - either LBC or at court stage - with a similar old (BPA time) 2014/2015 ticket, using BW Legal.

Their cases are JUST like your 2 claims. I will not provide links, I want you all to get used to how the forum works (you will need to) and find each other's threads and bookmark them and contact each other.

I suggest you all keep reading the advice on each other's threads and maybe swap info by private message, to support each other and share info and defences, as you will likely get small claims, which are likely to be beatable (no risk of a CCJ as long as none of you ignore it).

Do your AOS x 2, no need to ask how, the NEWBIES thread post #2 gives you a pictorial link about each page and what to tick.

Justice13075

I see you have found a defence online but yours is for parking tickets. My son is looking for a defence but for not having a parking permit have you come across a defence for his scenario

Le_Kirk

Justice13075 wrote: »

I see you have found a defence online but yours is for parking tickets. My son is looking for a defence but for not having a parking permit have you come across a defence for his scenario

Use the search function on "this forum only" , advanced search and change the radio button from show threads to show posts. Use "parking permit" as your search term. When you have found what you want and if you still have questions, start your own thread.

Coupon-mad

Justice13075 wrote: »

I see you have found a defence online but yours is for parking tickets. My son is looking for a defence but for not having a parking permit have you come across a defence for his scenario

I'd search the forum for these keywords, as it will narrow it down to actual defences:

permit defence statement of truth

and change the advanced search default to 'SHOW RESULTS AS POSTS'.

Also, what was wrong with the advice I already posted on Cawills2018's thread, where I talked him/her through how to structure a permit defence?

You need to keep tabs on all those ten cases and simply do a search for other permit defences too, this is not hard as long as you get used to searching this forum.