BW Legal / Premier Park Limited LOC Unauthorised Entry/ Parking

nobodygotimeforthat

Okay. I have spent nearly 2 weeks reading newbies section and a ton of threads similar to mine. I will eventually have to start my own thread as I'm certain they will issue court proceedings. I hope you don't see this as drowning you as how you keep up with any of these is beyond me. I take my hat off to you all. I am joining this fight against PPCs and will from now on keep this post updated and help out others where I possibly can!

Circumstances are as follows. Never heard from BW legal or Premier Park Limited until I received a letter dated 26th June from both of them (separate letters) PPL stating '"account" passed to legal team'. BW legal stating 'pay £160 or we may start legal proceedings'.

Before I had a chance to formulate a reply, i received a Letter Of Claim from BW legal dated 12th July.

The alleged contravention is from Jan 2018, and the description is Unauthorised Entry/Parking.

I don't know who was driving, who parked there, I don't recall anything. The numberplate shown is my work van. I am the registered keeper, but if they have photos they will see my company signage on it. Could have been anyone. I don't have employees but I do use plenty of subcontractors who will drive the van when working.

I've submitted an SAR to the PPC. They requested additional information from myself to prove my identity which I supplied so I am assuming they are complying with my request.

I am about to advise BW I have requested an SAR from their client and request a "hold". I will also say I am "seeking debt advice" as I know this will buy me another 30 days. My reply is shown below. I am wondering if I should be more vague? The NEWBIES thread #2 goes straight from SAR to court claim. So should I let them know I have requested the SAR and wait for them to refuse to put my account on hold (as they always do it seems) and just await court papers? Or leave my arguments in that I don't know anything about this as shown in my below reply.

I have also paid to find out who the landowner of the site is. It's a private person rather than a business. Has anyone had success in sending a letter to the landowner in this sort of case? I am not afraid to do so, just seeing if I could have some pointers with phrasing or the contents of the letter? Next steps will be to complain to my MP as excellently suggested by many.

Thank you all in advance.

Reply to BW Legal

BW legal
ADDRESS

DATE
Your Ref: TXXXXX

Dear Sirs,

I am in receipt of your Letter of Claim dated 12th July 2019.

I will mention at this point that aside from your letter dated 26th June 2019 which arrived with a letter from your client Premier Park Limited, dated the same, this is the first I have heard on this matter from either party.

I strongly refute that I have ever received a PCN from your client as stated in your letter to me dated 12th July.

Other assertions such as “despite out client's attempts to engage with you” I find wholly unfeasible as I don’t know who they are, I don’t know what event they are referring to and quite honestly I don’t know why I am now receiving letters from you.

Your letter of claim is vague at best and while you have had no trouble pointing me to paragraph 7 of the Pre-Action Protocol For Debt Claims, you yourselves seem to have missed paragraph 3. Namely these points in particular;

• (iii) where the debt arises from an oral agreement, who made the agreement, what was agreed (including, as far as possible, what words were used) and when and where it was agreed;

• (iv) where the debt arises from a written agreement, the date of the agreement, the parties to it and the fact that a copy of the written agreement can be requested from the creditor;

I have entered into no contract with you or your client, be it written, oral or otherwise. Perhaps this is why you have failed to provide details of it in your Letter of claim?

I have sent your client a Subject Access Request. I require a restriction of data processing and request this case should is put on hold until it is received.

I am also seeking debt advice.

My address for service is XXXX

Yours faithfully,

XXXXX

Big_Boi

Good so far.

nobodygotimeforthat wrote: »

I've submitted an SAR to the PPC. They requested additional information from myself to prove my identity which I supplied so I am assuming they are complying with my request.

What additional ID did you provide? I hope it was not a copy of your driving licence!

nobodygotimeforthat wrote: »

I am also seeking debt advice.

I would change this slightly to say that you deny the debt, but are seeking debt advice and therefore they are required to suspend proceedings for a month.

Use the precise words in bold.

nobodygotimeforthat

No, definitely not! I provided my V5 and a utility bill with everything blocked out but my address.

Right you are, I will change that wording post haste.

nobodygotimeforthat

I have now received a claim form from the County Court Business Centre, Northampton. 5 months after last contact. It is almost as if they file claims just before Xmas deliberately.

Issue Date: 19 DEC 2019

I have carried out AOS.

I also have a SAR from Premier Park and BW Legal (side note: I had a change of address and from the SAR they sent me I can see they sent letters to my old address before pursing me at my current address. The SAR fails to include any information on how they came to obtain my new address. I have contacted them again and asked them to provide this relevant information).

I now need to draft my defence.

The particulars of the claim are as follows:
Claim is for the sum of £113.74 money due from defendant to claimant in respect of a PCN.
PCN relates to Vehicle and Reg.
The terms of the PCN allowed the defendant 28 days from the issue date to pay the PCN, but the defendant failed to do so. Despite the demand having been made, the defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability.
The claim also includes Statutory Interest pursuant to section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% per annum a daily rate of 0.02 from DATE OF ALLEGED INCIDENT to 18/12/2019 being an amount of £13.74.
The claimant also claims £60.00 contractual costs pursuant to PCN Terms and Conditions. (I can hardly believe they have the balls to write this on the court papers - I live in Southampton.)

Interestingly in the LOC the breakdown of costs is:
Principal debt & Initial legal costs £160.00
Estimated interest £11.55
Estimated Court fees £25.00
Estimated solicitors costs £50.00
Total £246.55
(in the same letter on a separate page it refers to £100 as principal balance and total debt recovery costs £60) Either way, the LOC demands balance due as £160.

On the claim form the total amount claimed is £173.74, plus court fee, plus legal rep. costs. total £248.74.

The PCN I was issued with is for breach of contract.

My defence will consist of
1. Abuse of Process. Obviously!
(being in Southampton I am ever hopeful that when this is allocated to my local court, it is to a judge who has ruled on one of the famous cases seen on these forums!)

2. Inadequate signage. The terms and conditions/contract can only be seen once already inside the car park - which they say by entering/parking you agree to the contract. How is that possible when the entrance sign says 'Parking restrictions in place see additional signs for details'!?

3. My vehicle was there for 10 minutes. What is their grace period?

4. I have never said I was the driver. From the SAR I can see in their first letter (which I never received) says 'We recently issued PCN XXX to your vehicle because on DATE at TIME it parked in a manner whereby the driver became liable for the PCN at LOCATION.
The SAR shows pictures of my vehicle entering and leaving the car park, nothing showing it parked. Could the 10 minutes not have been the driver reading the signs and deciding to leave? The 10 minutes was inclusive of my vehicle entering and exciting the car park. By the time the driver parked, unstrapped, got out of vehicle, read signs, got back into the car, strapped themselves in, pulled out of the parking space and then out of the car park, that is surely 10 minutes!
Also, the car park is a turn off of a busy main road. The bold text on the entrance sign reads *P* for parking and *Welcome* . This is what any driver would see before turning in. The smaller text reads Private Land and then Restrictions apply, see additional signs for more detail. Driving past you would never see those extra words.

I am going to work on my defence now and post it as soon as I think I have something viable. I am working with several of the links from previous threads to ensure I can build a solid case.

If from the backstory anyone feels I should use a different / additional line of defence I am happy to hear it.

Thanks in advance!

The_Deep

On the claim form the total amount claimed is £173.74, plus court fee, plus legal rep. costs. total £248.74.

Clearly an abuse of process, read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6014081/abuse-of-process-district-judge-tells-bwlegal

and make sure tou big it up on your defence statement, many judges are throwing these fake claims out without a hearing.

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams, so consider complaining to your MP., it can cause the scammer extra costs and work, and in some cases, cancellation.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies.[/FONT]

KeithP

nobodygotimeforthat wrote: »

I have carried out AOS.

On what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?

nobodygotimeforthat

Hi Keith,

I did it today.

KeithP

nobodygotimeforthat wrote: »

Issue Date: 19 DEC 2019

With a Claim Issue Date of 19th December, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 23rd December, you have until 4pm on Monday 20th January 2020 to file your Defence.

That's four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence could 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. No need to do anything on MCOL, but do check it 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 trying to keep you under pressure. Just file it.
   
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.

nobodygotimeforthat

Thank you for your replies thus far.

I am just working on a letter to my MP.

Does anyone have any links or reading material where there are examples of a letter to an MP about private parking companies? I have managed to find a brilliant letter on one of the much earlier threads on this forum circa 2012 but unfortunately as the parking code of practice has been updated a lot of the points raised do not correlate to the current practice.

Coupon-mad

I think it would be hard to find one by searching, as all you will get is posts by The Deep!

The_Deep

You do not need to include points of law in your letter to an MP, jusr bare bones facts. Their spads are usually very familiar with the scam.