Parking Charge Limited & BW Legal

Jay_E

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You are not looking in the right place.

See your thread, I answered you.

With the best will in the world, questions like this are a waste of time, and we are so busy here out of the goodness of our hearts it sometimes makes me want to stop.

I'll take a break for food and be back.

Post #39 was not made by me who started this thread. I believe this is someone else trying to get some advice.

Jay_E

*Update* I received a county court claim form yesterday so will be spending the next few days trawling through the other BW Legal threads.
My question is... what do I do about the fact that I haven't received anything with regards to my SAR? I have already filed a complaint with the ICO and informed both BW Legal and PCL that I have done so.

KeithP

Jay_E wrote: »

I received a county court claim form yesterday...

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

Jay_E

KeithP wrote: »

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

Issue date is the 5th July and yes it came from the Northampton county court business centre

KeithP

Jay_E wrote: »

Issue date is the 5th July and yes it came from the Northampton county court business centre

With a Claim Issue Date of 5th July, you have until Wednesday 24th July to do the Acknowledgement of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. To do the AoS, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox file linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread. About ten minutes work - no thinking required.

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 7th August 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but please don't leave it to the 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 "defence received". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to keep 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.

Jay_E

KeithP wrote: »

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 7th August 2019 to file your Defence.

Thanks. Any advice on how I will be affected by them ignoring my SAR so not having all the evidence?

KeithP

Jay_E wrote: »

Thanks. Any advice on how I will be affected by them ignoring my SAR so not having all the evidence?

The response to your SAR is likely to be most useful at Witness Statement and evidence stage - a few months away.

Jay_E

Please can I have feedback on the defence written below. Ideally I would like to send it off by Friday the latest. Thanks in advance!

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

Parking Charge Limited (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. The Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. The Claim relates to an alleged debt arising from a postal Parking Charge Notice, when parking at *************, ***********ANPR Car Park on [Date]. Any breach is denied, and it is further denied that there was any agreement to pay the Claimant £100 'parking charge'.

2. The Particulars of Claim does not state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle(s).

2.1 The Parking Charge Notice states that the name and address of the driver is unknown and as such are writing to the registered keeper of the vehicle.

2.2 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.

3. 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.


4. 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 at XXXX. The vehicle entered the car park at 12:53:23. There was no option to ‘pay and display’. All parking was to be paid for via a payment website named “Whoosh”. Due to trouble accessing the website and then having to register before making a payment, a payment of £1.20 was made validating parking from 13:02 till 16:02. The vehicle left the site at 16:07:29 thus overstaying 5 minutes.


5. The allegation is that the vehicle was ‘parked without clearly displaying the required valid pay and display ticket and no other cashless parking payments detected’ based on images by their ANPR camera at the entrance and exit to the site. This is merely an image of the vehicle in transit and is no evidence of a contravention or failure to make payment. Further, this contravention cannot have occurred, given the facts and evidence.

5.1 As previously stated, payment was made via the “Whoosh” payment website.

6. The allegation appears to be based on a parking charge notice ('PCN') that was prematurely issued just five minutes after expiry of paid-for time, breaching the mandatory 'grace period'. Point 13.2 from the BPA CoP states: "If the parking location is one where parking is normally permitted, you must allow the driver a reasonable grace period in addition to the parking event before enforcement action is taken. In such instances the grace period must be a minimum of 10 minutes."

7. In addition to the original PCN penalty, for which liability is denied, the Claimants have artificially inflated the value of the Claim by adding purported 'costs' of £60, which the Defendant submits have not actually been incurred by the Claimant.

7.1. These have been variously described as ‘Initial Legal costs’ (in the pre-action exchange of letters) and/or ‘Debt Recovery Costs’ (not part of any terms on signage and cannot be added, not least because it was never expended). Suddenly in the Particulars there is also a second add-on for purported 'legal representative costs of £50' on top of the vague £60, artificially hiking the sum to £244.76. This would be more than double recovery, being vague and disingenuous and the Defendant is alarmed by this gross abuse of process.

7.2. Not only are such costs not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that the Claimant has not incurred legal costs. Given the fact that BW Legal boasted in Bagri v BW Legal Ltd of processing 'millions' of claims with an admin team (and only a handful of solicitors), the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste BW Legal robo-claims at all, on the balance of probabilities.

7.2.1. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost.

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

Coupon-mad

Remove #2 and 2.1 ad 2.2 as they add nothing.

DO NOT say this, you did not overstay:

The vehicle left the site at 16:07:29 thus overstaying 5 minutes.

I'd search the forum for NCP green button taxman and read the wording I suggested people use in future for alleged overstays in PDT machine/phone car parks.

The contract only started when the payment was made and the Court of Appeal in NCP v HMRC held this to be a fact, and you need to later use that transcript in evidence. So cite it now like others have done.

Oh, and you are missing the usual 'no proprietary interest/landowner authority' point.

Jay_E

Defence updated and emailed across today is that ok or should I send a paper copy by post as well? The deadline for the court to receive it is the 7th August.
Also, should I send a copy to BW Legal?