2 separate letters from BW Legal - Britannia Parking

Coupon-mad

"present your self with proof of ALL your costs"
How should I understand that, how can I prove it?
I haven’t been recording myself while reading and preparing all that stuff

You can't prove your hours, but you COULD say that it is established practice that it takes a foreign speaker some 25% longer to read and research matters, than a person for whom English is their first language, hence why you are claiming xx hours.

The 25% is my estimate of your extra time, given that at GCSE stage in schools (I know this due to my job) students using a foreign language dictionary used to get up to 25% extra time added onto the exam time (in fact usually only 10% time is added nowadays but a Judge won't know that and nor do most people!).

You should take proof of your income (a wage slip) and travel to/from the hearing, and parking for the hearing, and proof of posting and emailing things, all attached to a Costs Schedule. Send that to the court AND the Claimant.

The_Deep

If English is not your first language, and/or you do not speak it fluently I would say that you need a lot more than an extra 25% time to master the complexities of CPR, etc.

So many native English speakers come on here who struggle with the simplest of concepts, and, having been Consul in several countries, including the USA, you would not believe how stupid some people can be.

Please milk this for all it is worth.



t

mixMZ

Week before hearing received such an amusing email from those clowns!

I have been instructed by my client to attempt to settle the matter amicably.

I will be grateful if you could please give me call at your convenience time to discuss about the settlement.

I am looking forward to hear from you.

Kind regards
Jackson Yamba

should I response to this or just ignore them now...
I haven’t sent them defendant's schedule of costs yet, only Judge is aware of those cost for now.

nosferatu1001

I would respond back stating that you are willing to settle, and wish to hear your clients best offer to YOU to avoid their inevitable loss in court.

FOr refernce your costs you intend to claim are...

mixMZ

I really hoped that case will be completed by now, but unfortunatelly its been vacated.

Yesterday got voicemail and email from SouthamptonDJListing confirming that

Unfortunately one of our District Judges has been taken ill and the hearing of your case for 2nd August 2019 has been vacated.
It will be relisted as a priority listing and notice of this new hearing will be sent to you in the post shortly.

2 days ago received another email from bwlegal reminding me that their client is still willing to "settle the matter amicably":)

I have responded and provided them my schedule of costs.

If the hearing has been vacated ,can they now simply submit notice of discontinuance and avoid their potential loss in court and got away with all those costs or the case has to be heard anyway?

Quentin

They are unlikely to cave in just because the judge couldn't make the date!

mixMZ

But now they have more time to realize that they have no chance in winning this case therefore why would they risk the costs?

My question is , can they at any time discontinue the case even if the hearing is already set?

KeithP

To answer your question: The Claimant can discontinue the claim at any time - right up to walking through the courtroom door.

mixMZ

Received confirmation from Court saying that the Hearing has been adjourned until xx September 2019

I know that it is not easy to follow BWLegal logic... but
If Claimant can discontinue the claim at any time, so what do they play now?

Just received another email from those Clowns:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

My client vehemently believes that there no grounds for you to seek costs for the unreasonable conduct.

Despite this my client is willing to settle matter on a drop hands basis. We can therefore confirm that providing that you first withdraw your application for costs, our client will then discontinue the claims against you and ask that the hearing be vacated.

They are already aware of the costs so I believe I dont need to do anything now, just ignore whatever they say ,sit silent and wait for hearing?

mixMZ

I won, but I feel like I lost.
Both claims were dismissed .

Arrived 15 min before hearing ,I wasn’t aware I needed to sign in:), so I was just sitting and waiting outside the court room. When I was told I need to sign in the claimant representative came and asked if i wanted to chat?

Thanks but I don’t think it’s necessary ,I responded. I saw in her eyes a bit o shock... like she really wanted to chat or something...

We finally were asked to go to court room after about 30 min of wait.

The stress kicked in and I was right when I wrote earlier about my fear and the fact that it may not be easy for foreigner to respond quickly with clear answers.

A bit of surprise when Judge started from asking the rep what those claims are for...

She replied that both claims are for contractual cost ...
and then Judge said more less that:

"this court is now systematically strikes out claims for those costs"
and also said to rep to refer back to the instructors if they wanted to appeal this decision that
"this is the position its going continue to be adopted" ???

Judge then said that both claims have also £60 administrative cost which are not allowed

Rep asked if Judge could explain why these are not allowed

Judge started reading this "word for word":

"The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the defendant contracted to pay, This additional charge is not recoverable under the protection of freedoms act 2012, Schedule 4 not with reference to the judgement in parking eye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover.

So the value of the claim is now down to - £70 each.

Rep started pointing to NTK ,explained it was provided to me, then started explaining car park with all photos that were attached as evidence.

It was really obvious that she wasn’t know what she was talking about and she wasn’t prepared at all.

Judge quickly picked that up and asked rep if she is prepared to answer to defendants objections within WS , silence… Judge asked if she was instructed how to answer to those points I raised, silence…

Judge explained that she needs to prove claimants case and prove why do I owe them money and she started again from scratch going through their own WS...
A bit of comedy and Judge was definitely to soft. I felt really sorry for her but at the same time I felt calm as I knew there is no way I was going to lose it.

It took her almost 15 min to go through NTKs where she tried to say that I gas given Notice to Keeper and she couldn’t understand that it was not POFA compliant... we went through pofa2012 , I exposed evidence and showed Britannia’s pofa compliant and non pofa compliant notices so they could clearly see that 8(2)f was missing...

I could tell that Judge didn’t know POFA as he was comparing those NTK and then checking that paragraphs within schedule 4. then he asked rep does she agree if this subparagraph is relevant. She finally said yes.

To my surprise , every time I wanted to say something ,Judge stopped me and was asking question to rep.
I didn’t even had a chance to point out other aspects ,of those claims... Judge already decided.... I knew that it was my last chance to question other misleading points... Too late
Judge then asked about costs... I mentioned that they were submitted together with my WS, he was surprised, I offered additional copy I brought with me, he looked at it for no more than 10 sec!!! and again asked me If it’s the only copy I have, I confirmed and he gave me that back?

Judge wasn’t happy with unreasonable behaviour, I then tried to "challenge" that and said that there are many points where claimant was misleading court deliberately like quoting wrong BCop, tried to keep me liable for charge they are fully aware they could not, added fake charges etc. Judge was still not convinced. He asked then about loss of income, asked what do I do and how much I earn I confirmed its approx. £115 a day before tax. He asked me If I took a half day off, I explained Its being very stressful day for me and as English is not my first language I wouldn’t be able to work half day and just like that go for the hearing afterwards, I have no Idea how He calculated costs but as a result He awarded me with £35...

What I have learnt?

Not wort supplying a long WS as my impression was that it wasn’t read at all.

Rep was given much more opportunities like Judge knew its going be struck out but wanted her to think hard to do her job best she could… (completely do not understand such a sympathy to someone who represent scammers!)

If I had a chance to do it again, my tactic would be different. I was too laid-back as I knew it cannot be lost and I lost the vigilance in the moment when it was too late to attack.

Still think that my biggest issue was the language barrier but at least I didn’t give up and pay nothing to those scammers + they lost not me ,even if my expectations were higher

A big thank you to everyone who helped me ,and to everyone who contribute to this forum . without you I would probably give up at some point.