County court business centre

Turnip101

Just recieved a letter from County Court Business Center. I’ve previously received multiple “Final Reminders” from Britannia Parking and BW legal and just ignored them. Can I just ignore this new letter? What will happen if I do ignore it? Do I have a case worth defending?

Basically I parked in a private car park owned by Britannia Parking and paid for a ticket. When I returned to my car it wouldn’t start and had broken down, I had to wait for about 4 hours in the car park which I was eventually taken out of and home on the back of a recovery truck. I didn’t pay for the extra 4 hours or so as to be honest that was the last thing on my mind at the time.

At the minute the charges are broken down as this:
Amount claimed £151.74
Court fee £25.00
Legal Representatives Costs £50
Total amount £226.74

Will that go up if I just ignore? Is it worth defending? Shall I just pay up?

I’ve looked through previous posts and couldn’t find anything specifically with a car broken down in a car park.

ShakeItOff

If you ignore this one, you will end up with a default CCJ and will have to pay it. So no, absolutely do not ignore this one.

Yes, there will almost definitely be points that you can defend.

Check out the NEWBIES post, specifically post 2, as this talks through the claim process. Your next steps areto complete the Acknowledgement of Service, and send a subject access request to Britannia (template link in the NEWBIES thread, send by email to their Data Protection Officer - email adxres5is on their privacy page).

You may also want to search this forum for "another one bites the dust" to see those who have defended claims successfully. The people who do defend with help from here have excellent success rates.

Umkomaas

BRITANNIA or NCP / BWL CASES

As you will see from the first few pages of the forum, there is an onslaught by BWL on behalf of Britannia or NCP (and a few other hitherto court-shy PPCs) which is being conducted on an industrial scale - roboclaims.

You are caught in a one-way traffic flow where you must fight or pay - there is no longer a safe 'do nothing' option.

1. Pay now, it costs you exactly what they are currently demanding.
2. Ignore it, a 'judgment in default' will inevitably follow for at least what they want - maybe with even more costs added; continue to ignore that, you're getting a CCJ with credit trashing consequences for 6 years.
3. Defend, yet lose in court, the cost award is likely to be noticeably less than their current demand ~£175.
4. Defend, and win in court, you owe them nothing and you could claim up to £95 for half a day's pay/loss of annual leave, plus travel costs @45p per mile, plus your parking cost for the day.

Your least costly option has to be 3, with hopefully a win as per 4.

But BWL/Britannia or NCP cannot physically take everyone to court, and there is evidence to show that with a well constructed defence, BWL can come along with a reduced 'offer to settle', which if refused, becomes a discontinuation. We can't give you guarantees on that, but as you have little choice other than to defend (if you don't want to pay), you need to give this your very best shot.

Whether you have a good defendable case to argue, you will need to read other similar cases at the defence (or beyond) stage and learn from those.

ROBOCLAIMS - HOW BWL OPERATE

You might find it useful to understand how BWL operate - as I have surmised from the hundreds of different threads I've read involving BWL.

Other than the auto acknowledgements and template letters, you will get nothing sensible from BWL - they are dealing with literally hundreds of thousands of unpaid parking charges and are spewing out various threatening letters, using a conveyor belt approach to go through a computer controlled process towards a LBC, and a MCOL Claim - and it is really only at the final stages, as a court hearing becomes a possibility, that there's any real human intervention.

You need to understand that you're not dealing with an old fashioned firm of solicitors, just progressing from a quill and ink operation, BWL are industrial harvesters of debt, using the equivalent of massive combine harvesters to do their work. This is what their website tells you:

A multi-award winning law firm specialising in volume collections, across both regulated and unregulated sectors, who are dual regulated through the FCA and SRA.

We employ around 265 people at our Leeds based office which in turn makes us the largest privately owned debt collection law firm in the UK.

KeithP

Can we assume it is a Claim Form you have received from the County Court Business Centre?

If so, what is the Issue Date on that Claim Form?