BW Legal (NCP) Letter of Claim

Rudixx

Hello guys,

Back in June I was invited by NCP to pay the parking charge for parking without payment. I did not appeal and since then I've received some letters from Trace and from BWLegal. I've ignored them all.

Now I've got Letter of Claim from BWL and I am wondering if I have any rights to defend this. I did park there for 11 minutes and 29 seconds which exceeds the grace period by 1 minutes and 29 seconds. I simply didn't pay because I had no change. I was talking to my friend, then I took a phone call and as soon as I realised I have no change I left the car park.

The original NCP notice contains photographic evidence recorded by ANPR camera. The letter from BWL is missing solicitors signature and the evidence (not sure if they must provide it again). Apart from this BWL was harassing me with phone calls few times a week (not sure who gave them my number).

Since I know I am guilty my question is do I have to pay or is there any way to dodge this?

The_Deep

Since I know I am guilty my question is do I have to pay or is there any way to dodge this?

Not unless a judge tells you to.

There are a myriad of hoops a PPC must jump through before a judge will agree that you have committed a breach of contract, have they complied with POFA, do bye-laws apply, are the terms and conditions fair, unambiguous, visible, does the PPC have a proper contract with the landowner, is their paperwork up to snuff, served in time, is this valid use of court time, is there a cause of action, etc. It is a scam.

BTW, £240 is more than the law allows. If they were to take you to court and win, the most a judge is likely to award them is iro £175 - £200, the rest is a fraud. Please report them to their regulatory body the SRA

http://www.sra.org.uk/home/home.page

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

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. It has even been suggested that some of these companies have links with organised crime.

Watch the video of the Second Reading and committee stage in the House of Commons recently. MPs have a very low opinion of this industry.

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

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSitting)

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by in the not too distant future..

beamerguy

You must edit your post QUICKLY by changing "I" to the keeper

You are admitting too much and DELETE the final line ..Since I know....

You entered the car park, no change so you left overstaying by a mere 1 min 29 seconds ??? allowing for the grace period

NCP are BPA members and here is what the BPA say about grace periods. Couple this to the fact that the BPA has stated that ANPR is not 100% reliable

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/News/good-car-parking-practice-includes-grace-periods

Clearly NCP are wasting the time of BWLegal with such a feeble claim and BWLegal are wasting your time and will end up wasting the courts time as per usual.

Looking at the letter, there is a contradiction in what they are saying

STATEMENT
"Principal balance + Initial legal costs £160

The paragraph below says" ...
"Our client is entitled to recover debt recovery costs referred to in the table above"

This was not referred to so what is it ... legal costs or debt collector costs ???

We know the £60 is a fake add-on from the debt collector.
They are trying to extort money from you

The signs they say show the debt collector charges in their T&C's so go and have a look at these signs, take some pictures, are the T&C's in small letters ????

You can read here about the failures of BWLeegal
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5672664/bwlegal-the-list-of-failures-growing

KeithP

This is the same letter of Claim that you posted last month:

BW Legal (NCP) Letter of Claim

Have you not replied yet? Two days to go.

As said, you can defend this on grace periods.

Why have you started a second thread about this?

Rudixx

I don't think it makes a lot of difference who was driving since they are relying on the Protection of Freedoms Act to pursue the keeper anyway.

@KeithP
I knew I posted it somewhere but I thought it was on different forum, sorry for duplicate.

Here is my response to BW legal which I am planning to send them via email.


Dear BW Legal,

I am in receipt of your Letter of Claim, dated .

I dispute your claim as the driver did not enter the contract with your client NCP.

I require NCP to send me the following information/documents:
- How the monies being claimed arose and have been calculated?
- Provide me a copy of the contract with the landowner under which authority to bring the claim is asserted, as required by the IPC code of practice section B, clause 1.1;establishing yourself as the creditor.
- Provide me a map showing where any signs were displayed, including those upon entering the business park where the alleged contravention took place and the details of the signs displayed (size of sign, size of font, height at which displayed).

Yours faithfully, (etc etc)


Thank you in advance!

KeithP

Change the word yourself to your client.

Coupon-mad

Does your phone have Google location data that shows you were actually there less than they say? We've seen ANPR being proved by Google Location data to be 3 minutes out, which takes a case under the grace period.

Rudixx

Apparently they no longer need to calculate the charge (ParkingEye v Beavis). Does the below looks better?

Dear BW Legal,

I write in response to your "letter of claim" dated xxx xxx xxx, the contents of which are noted. As registered keeper I dispute your claim as the driver did not enter the contract with your client NCP.

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 map showing where any signs were displayed, including those upon entering the business park where the alleged contravention took place and the details of the signs displayed (size of sign, size of font, height at which displayed) 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 :-

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 over riding 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 In 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.


I await your response.

Yours sincerely

I've checked my Google timeline and it's all over the shop



Also if they take me to the court do I need a solicitor with me?

beamerguy

Rudixx wrote: »

Apparently they no longer need to calculate the charge (ParkingEye v Beavis). Does the below looks better?


Also if they take me to the court do I need a solicitor with me?

What are they on about ???? If they are talking about the £60 fake add-on ....... that never happened in the Beavis case?

No need for a solicitor, too costly. Anyway, you have good online solicitors on here helping you

Lets see how they respond and especially what excuse will they use for the £60 as they tell different people different things
They really are a shambles

Have they artificially invented figures in an attempt to circumvent the Small Claims costs rules using double recovery (a Bargepole quote)

Rudixx

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What are your thoughts about the above automatic reply?

Redx

do not give them all those details, read recent threads and posts where this has already been answered under the GDPR, they are harvesting too much personal info and data that is not required


a scan or picture of the V5C is usually sufficient as it contains the keepers name and verified address and the VRM details too


I would not give them my DOB or phone number, its none of their business


as for an email, I would set up a new gmail email account just for purposes like these and submit that email as suitable for email replies