County Court Claim - BW Legal

cherylwales

Hi, I have just found this forum thread after searching for help and will now get on with reading through the various sticky threads and any other bits that I can find that are relevant, however as there seems to be so much to learn about this new world of parking fines, I’d be grateful if anybody can give me some pointers of any particular points I should be looking for or using?

Brief summary of our situation is:

a) Back in July 2015 we received a PCN parking fine from Premier Park Limited for £100 after parking whilst on holiday in Falmouth. From looking through the bits old paperwork I can find, we stayed 33 minutes later than our ticket but I cant remember why.

b) We tried to appeal the PCN back in 2015 but this was at a time when Popla were changing systems and our appeal was never registered and after lots of correspondence with them they finally told us that although it was their fault it was not registered in time, there was nothing they could do about it as it was now out of time!

c) The letters from Premier Park and their debt collection agency eventually just stopped arriving back in 2016 and we simply forgot about the matter, assuming it had just "died a death".

d) In February this year, BW Legal started writing to us about the parking fine from 2015 asking for payment of £264.42 or they would issue a County Court Claim. I simply ignored all of their letters in the (naive) hope that it would all just go away again. We have now received a county court claim and need to decide how to respond.

The main questions I have are:

1) Is there any point in me trying to defend this matter since I can’t remember much about it all, why we were late and have no proof as to what any signs did or did not say back in 2015. I don’t really know what my grounds for defence would be other than that £264 is an extortionate amount of money for half an hours extra parking!

2) If i do go ahead and defend this, there is no way the defendant could go to court and stand up in front of people as he suffers from anxiety - would I be allowed to do it on his behalf?

3) The claim form is from County Court Business Centre in Northampton - would I have to attend a court in Northampton? This would be impossible for me to get to.

As I said I will now read through as much as I can but any initial guidance would be greatly appreciated as I believe I have to respond to this claim form in the next few days.

Many thanks in advance

Quentin

Throughout here you are advised never to reveal who was driving

You need to edit your post to remove details of who was driving

The ppcs monitor this forum and can use posts in your thread against you

1) Of course defend. You are not unusual. Claims often come years after the evt

2) The defendant must appear in court, but can arrange for a friend to do the presentation

3) Hearing is at a court of the defendants choice

Use the newbies FAQ thread (post #2 there) as your Bible now you have received a claim until it is concluded

It advises on claims right through to the hearing

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

To answer your questions:

1) Yes, there is every point in defending this. Use post #2 of the NEWBIES thread for guidance.

2) Have a look at this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n93eoaxhzpU. The Defendant must attend, but it will be possible for you to do almost all the talking.

3) Any hearing will be at the Defendant's local county court.

Redx

1) yes , because you can object to the extra charges to whittle it down to around £175 , the £100 charge plus legal costs , the rest is ABUSE OF PROCESS and should not be there

no landowner contract , poor signage , all kinds of defence arguments

the defendant should email a SAR to the DPO at PPL and get all their docs and pics and data on the defendant and their vehicle

2) no , the defendant must attend court, not you on their behalf, but about 2 weeks prior the defendant can email the court saying they wont be attending and the case can be heard on papers

you can attend and help out as a lay rep, but any attendance must be WITH the defendant, not INSTEAD OF

3) you are wrong about Northampton , its a government office like the DVLA, manned by civil servants, its the central gateway for MCOL, they had to put it somewhere in the UK

the claimant had 6 years to take this to court , so only claims from 2013 or earlier are excluded , it did not "die a death" , they had another 2 years

the defendant will nominate their local county court , at the DQ stage

the newbies thread explains all this , please read it several times , especially posts #2 and #5

what is the ISSUE DATE on the claim form ?

plus the POC as well ?

plus the total and charges breakdown ?

do the SAR asap and the AOS online on the government gateway asap too


PPS monitor this forum so edit your posts about who did what , walls have ears !!!

cherylwales

Thank you for such quick responses!

Ok, its good to know that it would still be worth defending.

The issue date on the claim form is 16 July 2019
The POC says:

"The Claimants Claim is for the sum of £129.42 being monies due from the Defendant to the Claimant in respect of a Parking Charge Notice issued on 06/07/2015 at 15:01:54 at Maritime Car Park (ANPR)...

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 06/07/2015 to 15/07/2019 being an amount of £29.42.

The Claimant also claims £60.00 contractual costs pursuant to PCN Terms and Conditions."

Amount claimed £189.42
Court Fee £25.00
Legal costs £50.00
Total amount = £264.42

I'll get on with the online reply now and then carry on studying the sticky thread.

KeithP

cherylwales wrote: »

The issue date on the claim form is 16 July 2019

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th July, you have until Monday 5th August 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 Monday 19th August 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Loads of time to produce a good 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.

Redx

cherylwales wrote: »

The POC says:

"The Claimants Claim is for the sum of £129.42 being monies due from the Defendant to the Claimant in respect of a Parking Charge Notice issued on 06/07/2015 at 15:01:54 at Maritime Car Park (ANPR)...

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 06/07/2015 to 15/07/2019 being an amount of £29.42.

The Claimant also claims £60.00 contractual costs pursuant to PCN Terms and Conditions."

Amount claimed £189.42
Court Fee £25.00
Legal costs £50.00
Total amount = £264.42

so a lot of spurious costs to be objected to

the interest accrued due to the delay in bringing the claim, so object

the £60 isnt allowed either , its abuse of process, not agreed by the driver , the pcn was for say £100 , nothing more , read the thread by Beamerguy

the correct charge is about £175 plus maybe some interest


google your local county court for civil claims , that is where the defendant will nominate, not Northampton (unless you live in Northampton of course) - mine would be Manchester for example

beamerguy

BWLegal in scam mode again ????

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 06/07/2015 to 15/07/2019 being an amount of £29.42.

The Claimant also claims £60.00 contractual costs pursuant to PCN Terms and Conditions."

Amount claimed £189.42
Court Fee £25.00
Legal costs £50.00
Total amount = £264.42

INTEREST, the question to the court is why did they take so long to bring a claim, are they profiting on their delay. Most judges will not allow this.

Amount claimed £189.42 which includes a fake £60 charge.

What do the signs say about this fake contractual charge ???
They say the T&C's pursuant to the PCN. The PCN is only an invoice and no contract is formed. It's the signs that matter

BWLegal are not only abusing you but the court system.

READ THIS
Abuse of Process ... District Judge tells BWLegal
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6014081/abuse-of-process-district-judge-tells-bwlegal

The_Deep

Complain here that BWL are trying to defraud you and abuse the legal process..

http://www.sra.org.uk/home/home.page

and also to your MP as nine times out of ten these tickets are scams so complain to your MP.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, 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.

[Deleted User]

Not forgetting they've claimed interested on the £60 from the date of the parking event, despite (usually) applying that cost at a later point in time. So:

1. The £60 cost usually isn't contractual;
2. Depending on the case (keeper or driver) may be impermissible under POFA;
3. Purports to be a liquidated damages cost, it certainly is not a specific loss. Almost all signs I see refer to "may charge an additional fee" which is NOT agreement to liquidated damages by contract; and
4. Is in any event incorrectly calculated on the interest (as established by their own correspondence). The £60 is a cost apparently that is a notional charge of debt collection. How can the interest accrue from the day you parked, when at that point no costs of chasing payment had been incurred?


But other than that, I'm sure it's fine :think:

cherylwales

Thanks again all for the help so far.

AoS has been done and I'm still reading everything to get my head around it all before starting to prepare the defence. One more quick question though - the sticky thread talks about sending a SAR; do I still need to do this step or have I missed that boat since I'm already at the claim stage?

Thank you