BPS / BW Legal Claim Form - Invalid Permit

beamerguy

Fenners79 wrote: »

BWLegal have now sent me a 'Notice of Intention to Proceed' advising me that they have received a copy of my response to the claim from the court and that their client intends to proceed with the matter notwithstanding your reason for disputing the claim. It seems to be a last ditch attempt/threat to get me to pay and gives me a deadline of 18 October 2019 to again settle the inflated balance. I'm still waiting on the BPS to respond to my complaint after they didn't fulfill the SAR but I guess the situation is still as before to just wait and see if they decide to proceed or not?

It's a joke really

In theory you should be giving BWLegal 'Notice of Intention" to advise the court about their abuse of process and on what authority do they have to add fake amounts.

But, as they read this forum, consider them being told

Fenners79

As of the 15th October I received more details on from the SAR, this was just an email with the other pictures taken of my parked car including the permit, some pictures of the signage and no further details of the of why the PCN was issued other than that it was recorded as 'invalid permit'. After receiving this information I didn't update the thread as I didn't think there would be any requirement for me to take any action. I actually just hoped that would be the end and BPS and BWLegal would decide there was no point in proceeding.

On the 9th Jan I received a 'Notice of Allocation to the Small Claims Track (Hearing)' advising me that the claimant has until 4pm on Feb 10 to pay the court a £25 trial fee and allocating a hearing date and time.

On the 15th Jan I received letter from BWLegal of a 'Without Prejudice Save as to Costs' offering me to pay £160 by 22nd Jan as opposed to the balance claimed of £247.26.

I assume the letter from BWLegal means that they are intending to proceed with going to court, Is the advise still to further play the waiting game for confirmation if they are intending to proceed and if they do prepare a witness statement and the other preparation advice from the Newbies thread. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Fenners79

Redx said:

Just ignore bwl for now and wait for your DQ from the CCBC plus your reply to your repeat SAR , play the long game , it's a tedious process

Those are the only 2 outstanding items at this time , the rest is white noise

I have dropped a clanger playing the waiting game and again misunderstood the process. I was continuing to check whether anything had changed with my case using the MCOL website and I assumed that as no court fee had been posted it was all going to come to an end. I thought I would double check with Bristol court and they advised me the fee had been filed on the 7th Feb so I am now about to become late on submission of my Witness Statement, should be sent today. Apparently when it gets allocated to a local court the MCOL does show further progress. The person on the phone from the court advised me not to worry and to submit as soon as possible but I am now quite worried about my mistake. I will obviously produce something and submit it but it may be quite crude. I will obviously get stuck in as much as possible but is there any advise of the likely outcome of this situation, i.e. a late or no witness statement present? Would my previously submitted defence be considered? Also I have not received a witness statement from BW Legal, should they also submit a witness statement on behalf of BPS?

Any comments or feedback would be gratefully appreciated.

Fenners79

Here is my draft witness statement, any feedback or recommended references / attachments would be greatly appreciated. I will need to get it sent off tomorrow.
________________________________________

WITNESS STATEMENT
________________________________________

1.     I, XXXXX XXXXXXX, of XX XXXX XXX, XXXXXXXXXX, XXXX XXX, am the Defendant in this matter, and the facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my own knowledge they are true to the best of my information and belief.

2.     I have not been legally trained and am defending myself through research alone. 

3.     I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence as already filed. 

4.     I assert that I am the registered keeper of the vehicle in question in this case, registration no, XXXX XXX but I was not the driver.

5.     The driver of the vehicle was parked at ‘The XXXXXXX’ in Bristol visiting a resident at the property and had been provided with a valid Temporary Parking Permit issued by the management office. 

6.     The permit was issued to the family member by the management office prior to arrival and can clearly be seen in the windscreen of the car in the photo provided by BPS Ltd upon SAR request.

7.     In spite of this a PCN was attached to the windscreen of the car, stating Reason for Issue : Invalid Permit. 

8.     Multiple phone calls were made and messages left with the registered BPS Ltd phone number found at BPS website (unable to post link) to verify why the Temporary Parking Permit issued by the management office was not valid but no response was ever received and it was assumed that BPS Ltd had made an error and closed the case.

9.     I contacted the management office to obtain proof that the permit had been provided but was advised that no records were kept of Temporary Parking Permits issued as the passes were issued for free of charge to residents of the ‘The XXXXXXX’. Therefore the claimant has not suffered loss or financial disadvantage. 

10. I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.
Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true

NAME
DATE

Coupon-mad

OK read the examples of the THREE things you need to submit to the local court and to the Claimant's Solicitor this week, as posted the other day by A_Seagull because (by not coming back much since October) it seems you have missed the importance about how to kick out the £60 added 'costs' by also filing & serving a Supplementary WS all about it.

Don't worry about being late.  As long as this is filed & served this week all should be OK as you are a litigant in person who didn't get the process but managed to catch the ball you dropped, now, and the Claimant was not disadvantaged in any way.

Just quoting your first post (below) to remind us all what this is about, while you find A_Seagull's update showing the documents he submitted which are a good example of the 3 things to do.

My wife was given a parking fine whilst parked in a private car park under a block of flat where a family member lived on Dec 2017. She was parked correctly and correctly displaying a visitors permit issued by the office of the flat complex. At the time we checked the parking company, Bristol Parking Services LTD (BPS) website and there was a photo of my car with the pass visible but not clear enough to see any details.

Fenners79

Thanks for the feedback coupon-mad, I panicked slightly about the timeframe and also received the claimants WS yesterday so have submitted my WS along the lines of my previous post with the addition of 2 referenced appendices. Appendix 1 including the information provided by the BPS Ltd from the SAR as this includes all the photos of my car with the pass displayed and Appendix 2 an extract from my itemised mobile phone bill showing the attempts to contact BPS Ltd to clarify the situation. 

My mistake was assuming the case was not proceeding by keeping an eye on the MCOL website to see if the £25 had been paid, I now know that this does not show on this website and no further notification is given when its paid. I expect this is clearly warned about in the newbies thread or the mountains of communications I now have.

As I have submitted this now do I have to see what happens or should I also submit a supplementary WS with reference to your comments on kicking out the additional costs and stating my own costs?

Also, I finally have clarification of why they believe in the permit was invalid, not in colour and not completely filled out. It was provided and filled by the management office with no instruction to fill out any other information. Exactly the same as each other times the same office had provided passes for the same car park and at no other time was a PCN issued.

nosferatu1001

Yep, the newbies thread is always the place to go. Its foolish to just sit waiting to see if they pay. 
Supplementary - send one in anyway. Youve been told to do it, so do it. stop askung each time. 
So it is a mistake of the likely principal to the contract? Even more chance of persuading a court that theyve done you wrong....

Fenners79

I have now being sent a further WS from the BW taken from the management office who provide the temporary parking permits, only 6 days from court date?! It states that they management office employee advised parking company the permit in my car was not valid and permits issued were always fully completed and duplicates not used. This simply isn't true and permits that were duplicates and permits partially completed had been used on multiple occasions without ever receiving PCNs. The management office specifically advised the resident getting the permit to make duplicates and often provided them partially completed again not resulting in PCN issuance. I have now got the resident who was advised this by the management office to complete a WS, another family member who had been provided partially completed permits by the management company and someone else who had used the partially completed permits to also complete WS's, to attempt to challenge the latest WS from BW. I guess this would be the right track to take, lots of WS and the court to make a call? Not too confident now will persevere and keep researching.

Coupon-mad

Yes that's good but file & serve those WS x 2 tomorrow, by email if you like (to court and BW Legal) as this is short notice and they are not huge attachments for the court to print.

Take at least one of those two witnesses with you to the hearing next week, if you possibly can, because a WS without the person turning up, is technically hearsay...but if it's IMPOSSIBLE for them to attend, file & serve their WS anyway, tomorrow.

Remember to point out to the Judge that the only person who is a real witness in this case is you - and your other witness(s) if they attend too - and that BW Legal's paralegal has never been to the car park, cannot speak with knowledge and isn't even at your hearing to be cross examined!

Which was what keypulse's Judge said today:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6058392/link-parking-bw-legal-beaten-in-court/p5

Read all of that.  It shows his WS and reports how his case went, and what the Judge thought about BW Legal's ''witness''.  It also shows you what the rep will do outside the hearing room, beforehand, so you can ''play along'' as well!

Fenners79

Thanks Coupon-mad, amazing results for keypulse and the work he did was amazing. I am nowhere nearly as well prepared or fluent as him. At this stage though I'd rather loose having gone through the process than pay a penny to them beforehand. I sent 3 additional WSs, 2 previous residents and 1 visitor challenging BWs additional WS. All was done via email as BW did to me. Going to just carry on reading, preparing and crossing my fingers now.