BW Reply to SAR request. Please advise

Georgios_M

Hi,


I have followed your 'small claim' advise (post 2) and submitted a SAR request to Britannia parking, following the Letter of Claim from BW Legal. I've also informed BW legal by email about my request and asked for my case to go on-hold till Britannia replies.



Today I've received by post a reply by BW Legal saying in essence that they don't care unless instructed otherwise by Britannia. Is there a way to attach the letter here for you to have a look?



The Letter of Claim had as a deadline the 17th of January 2019. I have emailed them on the 14th of January (both Britannia and BW) however on their letter they claim that my email was received by them on the 18th of January. Is this a mistake or do they want to mislead me on accepting I lost their deadline?


Can you please advise if I should reply to this or not? I was tempted to reply by saying that as long as you don't note the correct date on your letter then I will just disregard it , but I am not sure this is the best way to go.


Just a bit of context regarding my PCN. I got two by Britannia Parking. They manage a parking behind a Travelodge. During my wedding last year I booked rooms there for my parents and my wife's parents. So I drove there for the first time and parked normally. Their sign says with huge letters that parking is free for 30 minutes and with very small letters that you have to take a ticket and put it on your windscreen even if you stay only half hour. But of course I didn't read this as I was rushing and considered that for half an hour wouldn't have to do anything. Well you can imagine how I felt when I received two PCNs by post. I appealed to one saying that your signage is misleading but of course they didn't accept that. Up to now I've been receiving the usual payment letters and I kept ignoring them. Now I received the Letters of Claim by BW Legal and decided to fight back.


Can you please advise?

trisontana

Georgios_M wrote: »

Hi,


I have followed your 'small claim' advise (post 2) and submitted a SAR request to Britannia parking, following the Letter of Claim from BW Legal. I've also informed BW legal by email about my request and asked for my case to go on-hold till Britannia replies.



Today I've received by post a reply by BW Legal saying in essence that they don't care unless instructed otherwise by Britannia. Is there a way to attach the letter here for you to have a look?



The Letter of Claim had as a deadline the 17th of January 2019. I have emailed them on the 14th of January (both Britannia and BW) however on their letter they claim that my email was received by them on the 18th of January. Is this a mistake or do they want to mislead me on accepting I lost their deadline?


Can you please advise if I should reply to this or not? I was tempted to reply by saying that as long as you don't note the correct date on your letter then I will just disregard it , but I am not sure this is the best way to go.


Just a bit of context regarding my PCN. I got two by Britannia Parking. They manage a parking behind a Travelodge. During my wedding last year I booked rooms there for my parents and my wife's parents. So I drove there for the first time and parked normally. Their sign says with huge letters that parking is free for 30 minutes and with very small letters that you have to take a ticket and put it on your windscreen even if you stay only half hour. But of course I didn't read this as I was rushing and considered that for half an hour wouldn't have to do anything. Well you can imagine how I felt when I received two PCNs by post. I appealed to one saying that your signage is misleading but of course they didn't accept that. Up to now I've been receiving the usual payment letters and I kept ignoring them. Now I received the Letters of Claim by BW Legal and decided to fight back.


Can you please advise?

Please see post #6 on this thread and start your own thread!

Crabman

Posts above have been split from the newbies thread.

Coupon-mad

I've received by post a reply by BW Legal saying in essence that they don't care unless instructed otherwise by Britannia. Is there a way to attach the letter here for you to have a look?

No need.

Just search the forum for a short phrase from it! Seen it dozens of times, and so can you, and learn what people did next.

First step - urgent now as it needed to be done at the time - is to ROBUSTLY complain to the Travelodge Manager and the Head office of Travelodge who can cancel this unless the car park is not theirs, in which case, the landowner can cancel the PCNs. But not once court action commences.

So catch up NOW and do that complaint in the morning. Be VERY annoyed, icily polite is good, ask what Travelodge are going to to do about this scam. Mention TripAdvisor and TrustPilot reviews. It's more their fault for NOT drawing these onerous terms to guests' attention. Not the fault of unsuspecting, busy guests.

I would not respond to BW Legal unless you got 2 x LBCs (demand that they are merged to stop the gits issuing two claims) or if they got your address wrong which would need correcting to make sure you don't miss the inevitable, but beatable (no risk) court claim.

Georgios_M

Court Claim Received.

So I have received two County Court Claims by BW Legal and I have followed your advise on AOS so now I have to prepare my defence.


I intent to use the defence by bargepole as is.


IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material date in a marked bay allocated to Company XXXX at XXXX Business Park, and had a valid permit to be parked in that bay.

3. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant !!!8220;was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle(s)!!!8221;. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

4. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

5. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. They merely state that vehicles must be parked correctly within their allocated parking bay, giving no definition of the term 'correctly parked', nor indicating which bays are allocated to whom.

6. The terms on the Claimant's signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle, and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read the tiny font would be unable to do so easily. It is, therefore, denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.

7. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient prorpietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

8. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

9. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date





I need to highlight something. I visited the particular parting few days ago in order to have few photos. It seems they have added many new yellow signs instructing that even for free parking you need to display ticket. I am pretty sure these were not in place back then (the PCNs are about a year and few months old) but of course I cannot prove that. How do I handle that? Shall I say something in my first defence or later in the Witness Statement?
I have photos of the main blue big signs, with tiny letters for free parking, but I expect that BW Legal will bring photos of the many yellow signs.

Do I have to dispute they were installed there afterwards?


Also, Britannia hasn't replied to my SAR yet.





Unsure of if it helps, but please see below the particulars of claim. They are the same for both PCN.


"The claimant's claim is for the sum of £100 being monies due from the Defendant to the claimant in respect of Parking Charge Notice issued on xxxx at xxxx at Chelmsford -xxxx.
The PCN relates to Car xxxx under registration xxxx.
The terms of the PCN allowed the defendant 28days from the issue date to pay the PCN, but the defendant failed to do so. Despite demand having been made the defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability.
The claim also includes Satutory Interest pursuant to section 69 of the County Courts Act 1894 at a rate of 8% per annum a daily rate of 0.02 from xxxx to xxxx being an amount of £11.36.
The claimant also claims £60 contractual costs pursuant to PCN Terms and Conditions."


So the total amount they are claiming is:
Amount claimed (£171.36)+Court fee(£25)+Legal representative's cost(£50) = £246.36


Nice amount for few minutes of free parking.

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on each of your Claim Forms?

Georgios_M

29 Jan and 30 Jan

KeithP

Georgios_M wrote: »

29 Jan and 30 Jan

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th January or 30th January, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 4th March 2019 to file your Defence.

That's nearly four weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but don't leave it to the very last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as suggested here:

Print your Defence.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
   
5. Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive a copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to put you under pressure.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

Georgios_M

Thanks KeithP.


My understanding is that I can send my defence through the MCOL website. There is a start defence option under the AOS. Am I wrong?

KeithP

And my understanding is that there are very good reasons for not filing your Defence via the MCOL website.

You really need to read a lot more of post #2 of the NEWBIES thread and all the information linked from it.

In particular, can I suggest you home in on bargepole's 'what happens when' thread for the answer to your question.

Umkomaas

You have only one shot at your defence - unless you decide to change it or add to it later ....... @ £255 a pop!