Letter of Claim from BW Legal

Coupon-mad

can I infer that not all people would have a land line either so can leave both 'Telephone' and 'Mobile' boxes on the DQ blank?

Yes.

It is not essential for people to declare a phone number on a DQ, or otherwise be denied access to justice!

tor140

Thank you for your time, apologies for the misunderstanding.

tor140

Hi all, been a while waiting but have had my letter from County Court 'Notice of Allocation' turn up today.

Letter states 'claimant does by 4pm 31st July pay trial fee and file completed application or claim will be struck out. No mention of court date.

Not sure if i'm missing something, but I have also received today an email from BW Legal with their signed witness statement, but within the text of the WS it says 'I make this witness statement in readiness for the hearing listed for the 7th Aug '19'

Have I missed court date papers, or are they trying to get one over on me? This doesn't give me a lot of time to prep, and would have thought this means I've missed the date to file my WS!

Not sure what I should be doing! Thanks in advance.

tor140

Letter attached from BW. Two things that don't sound right to me, 1. the hearing date being listed as less than 2 weeks away when I've only just received Allocation letter stating their paperwork hasn't been filed and 2. it states something about 'sitting at Central London' which doesn't make sense to me. What are your thoughts?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X_nq8Cr5yu5M268uk7zcc-04UZjUFdHh/view?usp=sharing

KeithP

Looks like you are missing a letter from the court.
Phone the court tomorrow and ask them for a copy of the missing letter.

You knew this was coming so your Witness Statement must by now be pretty much ready.

Show us your proposed WS when you are ready.

tor140

I was missing the other side! Wife emailed me at work but didn't show the other side, I have drafted a ws but thought from the guide I'd be given a court date with time to submit the ws. Also, don't understand why it's in London and not my local county court, is this normal?

tor140

Also, letter from court is dated 23rd July arrived 25th and states all documents to be submitted 14 days prior to 7 Aug 19..... That was yesterday, not sure how I'm meant to have done that!

edit* I've attached below the Claimants WS for reference, was going over it last night to see how I can respond. They're siting a few cases that I hadn't come across on the guides so need a little more research.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RtcHA2m7Nj_cRk1dVfuUhOSP4OLCww__/view?usp=sharing

tor140

Having spoken to the court this morning, the date is correct and they have moved it away from my local court to central London and there's nothing I can do! They also said that even though the court papers have not given me sufficient time to submit the WS that the judge may not accept them late, so looks like I'm stuffed!

nosferatu1001

No, dont do that.

You obviously include in your WS that the allocation letter was X date and it was impossible to comply due to this. Theres very little chance a judge would care

I will not follow drive links.

tor140

Is there a safe way of sharing the PDF of Claimants WS?

My draft WS Below:

I am xxxxxx, defendant in this case
List of exhibits, numbers and description
Exhibit 1. Copy of Parking Charge Notice showing time issued 13:40
Exhibit 2. Photograph of signage at the site
Exhibit 3. Image of entrance to Victory Court.
Exhibit 4. Site plan with positions of signage locations.
Exhibit 5. Image of small obscured sign.
Exhibit 6. NTC photograph of the Defendant’s car.
Exhibit 7. Relevant section of IPC Code of Practise, relating to grace periods
Exhibit 8. Relevant section of Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd 9GF0A9E
Exhibit 9. Letters showing varying amounts and descriptions of debt.
Exhibit 10. Primacy of Contract – Tenancy Agreement
1. Sequence of Events
1.1 On xx/01/2018 the driver visited xxxxxxx, xxxx, by private motor vehicle. The driver was there at the invitation of a leaseholder tenant of xxxx, to view an item for sale.
1.2 Having parked at 13:38, the driver visited the property and briefly viewed the item with the tenant. The driver then returned immediately to the car.
1.3 Upon returning to the car at 13:45, a Parking Charge Notice had been attached to the windscreen at 13:40, with no mention as to when the vehicle was first seen. (Exhibit 1 Page 5).
1.4 The driver took a photograph of the signage (exhibit 2 page 6) and left the site having seen no mention of the requirement to display a permit. It is also noted that this sign is displaying the BPA accreditation to which the Claimant is not affiliated.
2. Ambiguous and misleading signage
2.1 There are no signs on entry of Victory Court to inform you that you are entering a restricted parking area as can be seen from image (exhibit 3 page 7).
2.2 It is noted that the information provided by the Claimant with regards to the placing of signage is incorrect, and the correct placement has been indicated on a site plan (exhibit 4 page 8).
2.3 The area is used for resident’s visitor parking and has clearly indicated spaces with a ‘VP’ to the front of the bay. There was one sign visible when reverse parked, which stated merely ‘vehicles must be parked with authorisation in a designated bay’ giving the driver the right to park having been invited by the resident to visit Victory Court. (exhibit 2 page 6).
2.4 There was a second sign that had been obscured by the parked vehicle at the rear of the bay stating, ‘Visitor bays marked VP’ and ‘Max Stay 24hrs’ (exhibit 5 page 9). On close inspection in print far too small to read from a passing vehicle there was mention of visitor permits. This was not seen by the driver at time of parking and is placed as such that it can be easily missed and obscured as can be seen by the Claimants own evidence photo (exhibit 6 page 10)
3. Code of Practice
3.1 The International Parking Community, of which the Claimant is a member, has a code of practice (exhibit 7 page 11) which states “Drivers should be allowed a sufficient amount of time to park and read any signs so they may make an informed decision whether or not to remain on the site. Drivers should be allowed a sufficient amount of time to leave a site after a pre-paid or permitted period of parking has expired.” The time between the driver’s arrival and the Parking Charge Notice being issued (exhibit 1 page 5) was 2 minutes, and the driver left the site shortly afterwards. Although a grace period is not specified in the Code of Practise, 7 minutes does not seem excessive. In any event, the 2 minutes given prior to issuing the PCN would not have been enough time to be able to park, read the signage, visit the property to obtain a visitor permit and return to the vehicle to affix.
4. Loading and Unloading
4.1 In Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd 9GF0A9E (exhibit 8 page 12) his Honour Judge Harris QC found that “The purported prohibition was upon “parking”, and it is possible to draw a real and sensible distinction between pausing for a few moments or minutes to enable passengers to alight or for awkward or heavy items to be unloaded, and parking in the sense of leaving a car for some significant duration of time. The concept of parking, as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it, and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture. Whether a car is parked, or simply stopped, or left for a moment while unloading, or (to take an example discussed in argument) accompanying a frail person inside, must be a question of fact or degree. I think in the end this was agreed. A milkman leaving his float to carry bottles to the flat would not be “parked”. Nor would a postman delivering letters, a wine merchant delivering a case of wine, and nor, I am satisfied, a retailer’s van, or indeed the appellant collecting an item for sale. Any other approach would leave life in the block of flats close to unworkable.”
5. Additional Sum / Double Recovery
5.1 The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and appears to be an attempt at double recovery. There also appears to be an attempt to hide this additional £60 charge from the court as a ‘Contractual Cost’ that has been referred to as varying additional charges throughout the Claimants and their Solicitors correspondences (exhibit 9 pages 13, 14, 15), most recently hidden as a £110 ‘Solicitor Costs’ fee on BW Legal letter dated 07/01/19 (exhibit 9 page 15), which is a sum in excess and specifically prohibited from being claimed in small claims court.
5.2. It is not believed that the Claimant has incurred additional costs - be it legal or debt collector costs and they are put to strict proof that they have actually incurred and can lawfully add an extra sum and that those sums formed part of the permit/parking contract formed with the Defendent in the first instance.
6. Primacy of Contract
6.1 It is denied that the Defendant or lawful users of the vehicle were in breach of any parking conditions or were not permitted to park in circumstances where an express permission to park was given to the driver to be parked at the time by the occupier and leaseholder of 9 Victory Court, whose tenancy agreement (exhibit 10 page 16) permits the parking of visitors vehicle within any visitor parking space. The Defendant avers that with Primacy of Contract, there was an absolute entitlement to park deriving from the terms of the lease, which cannot be fettered by any alleged parking terms. The lease terms provide the right to park a vehicle in the relevant allocated bay, without limitation to ownership of vehicle, the user of the vehicle or the requirement to display a parking permit.
6.2 The Defendant avers that the operator’s signs cannot (i) override the existing rights enjoyed by residents and their visitors and (ii) that parking easements cannot retrospectively and unilaterally be restricted where provided for within the lease. The Defendant will rely upon the judgments on appeal of HHJ Harris QC in Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd (2016) (exhibit 8 page 12)
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
Signed

Dated