BW Legal Defence Thread - WS Stage - Court Date < 2 weeks

JP26

18.Unlike this mendacious and greedy Claimant, ParkingEye themselves took on board the Beavis case outcome and they never add fake costs on top of the parking charge. It is indisputable that an alleged 'parking charge' penalty is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover all costs. The case provides a finding of fact by way of precedent, that the £85 (or up to a Trade Body ceiling of £100 depending upon the parking firm) covers the costs of the letters, and all parking firms are very familiar with this case:

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/67.html

18.1 “at para 98. {re ...The desirability of running that parking scheme at no cost, or ideally some profit, to themselves} ''Against this background, it can be seen that the £85 charge had two main objects. One was to manage the efficient use of parking space in the interests of the retail outlets, and of the users of those outlets who wish to find spaces in which to park their cars [...] The other purpose was to provide an income stream to enable ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit from its services...''

18.2 at para 193. ''Judging by ParkingEye’s accounts, and unless the Chelmsford car park was out of the ordinary, the scheme also covered ParkingEye's costs of operation and gave their shareholders a healthy annual profit.''

18.3 at para 198. ''The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye to make a profit.''

19. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

20. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

21. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

22. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed earlier General Judgment or Orders of DJ Grand, who (when sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court in 2018 and 2019) has struck out several parking firm claims. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Orders have been identical in striking out both claims without a hearing, with the Judge stating: ''It is ordered that The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

23. That is not an isolated judgment striking a parking claim out for repeatedly adding sums they are not entitled to recover. In the Caernarfon Court in Case number FTQZ4W28 (Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies) on 4th September 2019, District Judge Jones-Evans stated:

23.1 ''Upon it being recorded that Distract Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this court that their claim for £60 is unenforceable in law and is an abuse of process and is nothing more than a poor attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court v Beavis which inter alia decided that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law and if the practice continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

24. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed untrue in terms of the added costs alleged and the statements made, in trying to justify the unjustifiable.

25. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

26. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant.


Statement of Truth:
I confirm that the contents of this defence are true to the best of my knowledge.

Le_Kirk

To add strength to this point: -

7. The Claimant, or Managing Agent, in order to establish a right to impose unilateral terms which vary the terms of the lease, must have such variation approved by at least 75% of the leaseholders with no more than 10% disagreeing, pursuant to s37 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987, and the Defendant is unaware of any such vote having been passed by the residents.

You shouldn't use hyperlinks in a defence, courts won't spend time chasing them all over the internet. Just use the heading to which the link refers and, as you have done, excerpts from it to make your point.

Good to see you have included the abuse of process but there has been another instance of judge Taylor striking out a case.

JP26

Thank you, I've made those tweak and I saw that Judge Taylor made another ruling the other day. I have added the following to a new paragraph:

23. On a more recent claim number F6DP042N on 18th September 2019 at Southampton, Judge Taylor again stated to the court that “Even if there was evidence of a contract existing, he would of ruled out the claim as an abuse of process due to the unexplained added £60."

Le_Kirk

Yes but please correct that awful grammatical error "would of". It is of course, "would have" and I cannot believe a judge would say that, more likely a mishearing or misspelling by the OP.

JP26

Indeed, all corrected now.

Reckon it's all good to send?

Le_Kirk

If you've made all the edits that have been suggested then yes.

beamerguy

JP26 wrote: »

Indeed, all corrected now.

Reckon it's all good to send?

As BWLegal continue to add a fake £60, they must think they are entitled to do this. It must be asked on what authority they have to circumvent the law.

This is something a judge must ask BWLegal

JP26

Great, I'll sign and send shortly. Thanks again everyone, I'll be in touch when the next stage arrives and in the meantime will carry on trying to get the lease agreement.

JP26

Hello all,

Been a while since I updated as everything had been quiet until this morning. BW legal emailed me offering me a settlement but the email also stated the hearing was set for 2 March 2020, which is under 2 weeks away and I have had NO correspondence from my local court regarding a hearing date.

The last letter I had was the notice of transfer of proceedings on the 6th of November.

I'm now very concerned as I have less than 14 days until the hearing and supposedly past the deadline for filing my witness statement etc? Has anyone had experience of this situation where they don't receive any letters from the court ?

KeithP

You must express your concerns to the court.
Too late for today, but give them a ring in the morning and ask them what's going on.