Ncp-bw legal letter

Michael1953

Hi everyone, I wonder if there’s is someone out there who has dealt with what I have received.
In short , I attempted to park in a Ncp Manchester car park earlier this year, however after driving around 4/5 times realised there was no space and so I left, without parking. Soon after that I received a letter fining me £60 for non payment for parking. I replied to the letter admitting I was driving ( as it was my girlfriends car and they had sent it to her) but stated that I hadn’t parked as here were no spaces, and that there must be some mistake. I even said for them to check there cameras. They replied to say that I have broken the term/conditions as I had stayed in the car park for 12 mins , and was only allowed 10.
Since then I have just ignored there letters, as I though if they tried to take me to court that surely it would be laughed out, or that they wouldn’t even take it that far if they actually looked at the case.
Now I have received a letter from Bw legal asking for 260 odd quid and a threat of legal action.

Could anyone advise on how to deal with this please.

Many thanks

beamerguy

NCP up their tricks again to extort money.

They are BPA members and the BPA clearly state ......
"The BPA’s guidance specifically says that there must be sufficient time for the motorist to park their car, observe the signs, decide whether they want to comply with the operator’s conditions and either drive away or pay for a ticket,” he explains.

“No time limit is specified. This is because it might take one person five minutes, but another person 10 minutes depending on various factors, not limited to disability.”
https://www.britishparking.co.uk/News/good-car-parking-practice-includes-grace-periods

In your case, you could not find a space so you left and no doubt you were amongst others so a queue formed
No time limit is specified

So BWLegal actually think a court will allow such charges apply to a 2 minute so called overstay.
This would be wasting the courts time and BWL will be whooped once again and you can claim costs

The one certain part of this, you do not owe £260 as BWL add on fake charges in an attempt to extort money from you

BWLEGAL ADD ON A FAKE £60 ?
In addition to the 'parking charge', the Claimant's legal representatives, BWLegal, have artificially inflated the value of the Claim by adding costs of £60 which has not actually been incurred by the Claimant, and which are artificially invented figures in an attempt to circumvent the Small Claims costs rules using double recovery. >>>> thanks to bargepole

If it went to court, you must bring this the attention of the judge

I would now complain to Steve Clark of the BPA
steve.c@britishparking.co.uk

If BWL do go further, then they must send you a letter before claim also proving their case and giving you 30 days to respond

Be interesting to see if their claim would be "overstayed 2 minutes"

They would be laughed out of court

Coupon-mad

Same as all the other threads with BW Legal letters. We assume you read some before posting, so have an idea what to do?

And have you read the second post of the NEWBIES PLEASE READ THESE FAQS FIRST thead?

We can't just repeat the NEWBIES advice about LBC letters, on every separate thread too.

The_Deep

Read this and use it in your defence

https://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2014/03/waiting-for-space-is-not-parking.html

Were they daft enough to take this to court imo they would get very short shrift from a judge.

Also, £260 is far more than the Law allows for this sort of claim. The down market solicitors whom the PPCs engage know this, but, because they are solicitors, know that they can scare people into payingtheir unlawful demands.

It is in fact double charging and non claimable debt collectors' add ons. Imo, this is fraud, or, at the very least, improper conduct.

Were this to get to court and win, the judge would be unlikely to award the claimant more than £175 - £200.

I urge you to report this grubby law firm to their regulatory body, the SRA.

https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page

as I am sure they do not condone this conduct.

It is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business. Hopefully that will take place in the near future. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers. Read this one which I wrote earlier

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. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially 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.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

Michael1953

I really do appreciate your replies, thankyou very much �� apologies about the new thread, I was finding it difficult to navigate around the site to start with. Thankyou again . Michael