Letter of Claim & County Court Help

Tropicaldream

Dear users,

First of all I would like to thank the members who have contributed to this forum, especially the Newbies post which clearly a lot of thought and effort has gone into producing!

After following the forums existing posts I now seek some specific advice which I cant seem to find on the forum. I have received a total of three "Letters of Claim" from BW Legal and one Claim Form from the County Court Business Centre.

As advised on previous forum posts I have ignored debt collectors and responded to one of the Letter of Claims currently (the same one which is now a Claim Form from the Court) the other two I will also respond to following advice from yourselves. I still have until 24th September and 1st October to respond to the other two.

As i understand my priority is to acknowledge the Claim Form and state I intend to defend all of this claim. After which I will mount my defence using help from existing posts.

My specific question relates to the other letter of claims which will also likely become Claim Forms. I received no response to the first Letter of Claim from BW Legal - I did leave it until the last day to respond (i did this via email). My thought now is its better to get the response to BW Legal early to avoid it becoming a Claim Form?

My response to the first letter of claim is below, again thanks for helping with this from your previous posts:

"Dear BW Legal,

I write in response to your "letter of claim" dated 20th July 2018, the contents of which are noted. As registered keeper i have no idea about the parking charge at all. When or where it was for is a mystery to me. As the pre action protocols expect us to exchange sufficient information to understand each others position please forward to myself the original parking charge notice and a picture of the signs at the location as well as the operators contract which allows them to operate at the site (or indeed confirmation they own the land in question).

As well as the information already requested please answer the following questions :-

What type of car park is it ?

What contravention gives a cause of action ?

Who contravened your rules ?

Who you are pursuing ?

Have you followed the rules laid down in the Protection of freedoms act 2012 schedule 4 ?

How is the £60 extra made up ?

Not only will this information help comply with the pre action protocols it will also help achieve the overriding objective.

Having done some research on your claims i request that if you ignore my requests for information that your claim complies with

CPR 16

Contents of the claim form

16.2

(1) The claim form must –

(a) contain a concise statement of the nature of the claim

Contents of the particulars of claim

16.4

(1) Particulars of claim must include –

(a) a concise statement of the facts on which the claimant relies;

Practice direction 16

Other matters to be included in particulars of claim

7.5 Where a claim is based upon an agreement by conduct, the particulars of claim must specify the conduct relied on and state by whom, when and where the acts constituting the conduct were done.

CPR 22

Documents to be verified by a statement of truth

22.1

(1) The following documents must be verified by a statement of truth –

(a) a statement of case

Practice direction 22

Who may sign the statement of truth

3.1 I a statement of case, a response or an application notice, the statement of truth must be signed by

(2) the legal representative of the party or litigation friend.

3.7 Where a party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth on his behalf. The statement signed by the legal representative will refer to the client’s belief, not his own. In signing he must state the capacity in which he signs and the name of his firm where appropriate.

3.9 The individual who signs a statement of truth must print his full name clearly beneath his signature.

3.10 A legal representative who signs a statement of truth must sign in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

Practice direction 7E

Signature

10 Any provision of the CPR which requires a document to be signed by any person is satisfied by that person entering their name on an online form.

Until your client has complied with its obligations and provided this information, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim and to consider my position in relation to it, and it is entirely premature (and a waste of costs and court time) for your client to issue proceedings. Should your client do so, then I will seek an immediate stay pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction and an order that this information is provided.

I await your response.
Yours sincerely
XXX"

As stated, I have never received a response to the above, and they have not provided any of the information which I am led to believe I am entitled to under the Protection of freedoms act 2012. Should I therefore seek a stay pursuant and order this information is provided (if this is even possible) or alternative just use this as part of my first defence that BW Legal have failed to comply with POFA and my requests for information?

I have waffled on slightly so my specific questions which I would like advice on are below:

1) do i respond to the two outstanding letters of claim quickly with hope BW Legal respond and therefore it not becoming a Claim Form?

2) Is it OK to use the same response as my first one, should I change anything? they are currently being treated as separate claims but it is likely on my current course that i could end up with three court claim forms which have same defence which may possibly lose credibility?

3) How am i best to approach the Claim Form - should I seek a stay pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the practice direction and order that the information is provided (does anyone know how to even do that) or do I just build a defence around my response to BW Legal highlighting the fact they have failed to provide the information?

Some additional background which may help:
Claimant is National Car Parks Limited
BW Legal are acting as NCPs legal representatives
The car park in question is based in central Manchester
The car park has no barriers and the car was caught using ANPR cameras
I genuinely have never seen the original PCN so was unable to respond (this is the one which I now have a Claim Form for) so had no opportunity to defend myself earlier, the only letters i have seen is from debt collectors which i rightly or wrongly ignored.
The other two letter of claims which i am yet to respond to I have seen the original PCN and to be honest ignored, again looking back i probably should have before it got to this stage.

Thanks for reading any advice is welcome.

System

How did you manage to miss the signs within the car park? Do you have a pic of them?

Usually there are very large Pay and Display signs within so if you can give us the actual car park, we can see if someone else has had the same issue (blindspot) as you.

Tropicaldream

The car park is NCP Store Street Manchester near Piccadilly Station - I will get additional pictures on Monday of the entrance sign and smaller ones scattered around it

Tropicaldream

Update:
BW Legal have sent a letter this morning acknowledging my email - it notes that claim Form has now been issued through Northampton County Court and requests that I complete the response pack and send it back to BW Legal so they can review the offer of repayment.

The letter acknowledges the email but doesn't respond to any of the points raised in the email nor does it provide any additional evidence as requested.

I will send the response back to the court online and note that BW Legal havent provided any information requested.

Coupon-mad

... back to BW Legal so they can review the offer of repayment.

What 'offer of repayment'?

Tropicaldream

No idea, I've copied the letter below:

"We write in reference to the above matter and your email dated 24 August 2018.

Please be advised that a Claim Form has now been issued through the Northampton County Court (CCBC).

The response pack attached to the claim form will therefore need to be completed and returned to us and we will then review the offer of repayment. Should we find this acceptable we will then enter judgement by the way of installments.

Should you have any further queries do not hesitate to contact us

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely
BW Legal"

Am I right In thinking the best way to approach this letter is to ignore it and respond directly to the count and state in my defence that I have requested the information noted on my email within the time frame and not received the information requested.

I get the feeling they have messed up sending the claim form prematurely as I did respond to there letter of claim on the last day they said I could. Any recommendations?

Thanks

Quentin

Tennessee_Tuxedo wrote: »

I'm putting together a skeleton defence to go with the witness statement,,.....

Yes ignore this latest letter. ,(Assuming you don't want to pay!)

Construct your defence and post it here for comments before sending it

beamerguy

BWLegal seem to be cracking up, bet it's their tea boy
again sending these letters out

It seems they think this is a done deal offering a repayment
plan ...... it's the opposite especially as they failed to answer
you but prefer to issue court proceedings instead.

A judge will not like that, especially wasting the courts time

BWLegal trashed it for Excel/VCS and it's going the same way
for NCP

Tropicaldream

Thanks Quentin, I will do.

Agreed beamerguy, I have seen a few other recent forums popping up with letter of claim from BWLegal from Manchester car parks so i would imagine they are trying to make a statement with all of the claim letters.

Can anyone help with a recommendation for the other two letter of claims I have, is it better to leave it until the last minute like i did last time or respond early so speaking with BW Legal before the claim form?

KeithP

Tropicaldream wrote: »

Can anyone help with a recommendation for the other two letter of claims I have, is it better to leave it until the last minute like i did last time or respond early so speaking with BW Legal before the claim form?

Respond to both those.
Respond in such a time that they definitely receive your response before the thirty days are up. Do not leave it until the last minute.

Quentin

Follow the newbies faq #2 advice on rebutting your 2 other lbccas


But never speak to the PPC!