Claim form from BWLegal

BWScammer

Good evening,

Forgive me, I am new to this and have been reading and following many threads, including the newbie page.

As a registered keeper I have received a Claim Form from BWlegal for a Fixed Charge Notice.
I completed a SARS and an acknowledge of service has been completed. So, If I am correct I now need to write a defence within the 28 day period?

In a nutshell:
They claim my vehicle was parked on private land.
I was not the driver.
They observed the vehicle for less than 2 minutes. (the FCN states this).
They have added the scamming £60 to the FCN

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

KeithP

Hello and welcome to the forum.

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

On what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?

Who is the parking company?

BWScammer

The issue date for the County Court Claim Form was the 31/12/19 and the acknowledgement of service was today.

The parking company is Napier Parking, but BWLegal have taken over.

KeithP

BWScammer wrote: »

The issue date for the County Court Claim Form was the 31/12/19 and the acknowledgement of service was today.

With a Claim Issue Date of 31st December, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 3rd February 2020 to file your Defence.

That's over three 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.

Having filed your Defence, your work is not yet complete.

1. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire. Nothing of interest there. Just file it.
   
2. Wait for your own Directions Questionnaire from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then complete it as described by bargepole in his 'what happens when' post.
3. The completed DQ should be returned to the CCBC to the same email address and in the same way as your Defence was filed earlier.
4. Send a copy of your completed DQ to the Claimant - to their address on your Claim Form.

BWScammer

Ok, thank you for your help.

Coupon-mad

BWScammer wrote: »

The issue date for the County Court Claim Form was the 31/12/19 and the acknowledgement of service was today.

The parking company is Napier Parking, but BWLegal have taken over.

No they haven't, they are just solicitors. The Claimant remains Napier.

The_Deep

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][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 has been known to get the charge cancelled.

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.

[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

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

BWScammer

Thanks you all for your assistance so far. Could you please give me some feedback on my defence. I feel I may need some tweaking - any help is massively appreciated.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

NAPIER PARKING LIMITED (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)


1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The allegation appears to be based on a Fixed Charge Notice (FCN) which was issued to the driver after observing the vehicle for one minute and xxxx seconds.

3. The Defendant denies being the driver of the vehicle at the time of the supposed event.
a) The Defendant has never agreed a contract with Napier Parking Limited, and therefore has not breached any terms and conditions.
b) Napier Parking Limited have not provided any proof such contract exists between the Claimant and the Defendant.

4. The Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. However, the claim relates to an alleged debt in damages arising from a driver's alleged breach of contract, when parking at xxxxxxxxx on the xxxxxxx.

5. No evidence has been supplied by the Claimant to prove who parked the vehicle.
a) Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, there is no presumption in law as to who parked a vehicle. Nor is there any obligation for a keeper to name the driver.
b) The Claimant would need to adhere to strict provisions to hold the Defendant responsible for the drivers alleged breech.
c) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant would be the landowner.
d) The Claimant appears to be a ‘contractor’ operating under a bare licence to erect signs and to issue PCNs - but 'on behalf of' the landowner, which would give them no authority or standing.
e) In such case, the Claimant is put to strict proof that it had sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it had the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue Fixed Charge Notices, in addition to pursing payment by means of litigation in its own name on the said date.
f) The Defendant wrote to the Claimant asking them to provide a copy of the contract with the landowner under which they assert authority to bring the claim, as required by the IPC code of practice section B, clause 1.1.
g) The Defendant was informed they had no right to inspect such documents.

6. The Claimants solicitors, BW Legal are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one.
a) The Defendant would like to bring attention to a similar case where the District Judge has run out of patience with such robotic claims, which sadly are becoming a lucrative business due to the percentage that go undefended.
F0DP201T Southampton 10th June 2019 District Judge Taylor.
b) Parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.


7. The Claimants solicitors are seeking inflated, disproportion costs.
a) The initial Fixed Charge Notice was £90.00, however the Claimant is demanding a final sum of £232.xx.
b) The costs are not clear or justified. It seems BW Legal do not entirely understand what their cost represents.
c) A subsequent £60 was added to the sum. It was claimed to be ‘Initial Legal Costs’, then ‘Additional Charges/Costs’, then ’Contractual Costs’, ‘Instruction Fee’ and finally ‘Debt Recovery Costs’.
d) It would appear the additional £60 charge is in fact an abuse of process and the Claimant is attempting to double charge.


e) Such double charging is not recoverable under POFA Schedule 4 or indeed the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4. Not with reference to the judgement 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”.
F4DP5264 & F4DP5279 Southampton Court DJ Judge Giddins
"This Court must now systematically strikes out claims for those costs" and also said to refer back to the instructors if they wanted to appeal this decision and that this is the position which is going continue to be adopted.

8. Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous.
CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will;
a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

8.1) Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

8.2) The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

8.3) 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.

8.4) 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.

8.5) 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.

8.6) 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 an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''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...''

8.7) 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 mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

8.8) 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.

8.9) 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, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

BWScammer

What do I say to the MP?I cannot find any threads with this, sorry.

beamerguy

Your user name says it all. Of course BWLegal are scamming you, there is very little in their stable that can do much else.

I assume you have read the abuse of process thread

You have grasped the idea but you are not telling the judge the full story.
Coupon-mad has spent a lot of time telling the full story and the success rate is very high

If you really want to get BWLegal spanked in court again, then tell your judge why his/her fellow judges are kicking them out of court ?

As an example, you refer to BWLegal being serial claimants, the courts know this already and is not a defence

BWLegal have NO DEFENCE for their abuse of process. Had they had good reason, do you really think they would have lost again upon appeal using a barrister who failed as well.

Make sure your judge knows of the £60 scam. You copy the text by coupon-mad in post # 14 in this thread
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6014081/abuse-of-process-district-judge-tells-bwlegal

What do I say to the MP?I cannot find any threads with this, sorry

That is obvious ..... you tell your MP about the BWLegal scam ... in your own words ....

BWScammer

Thank you for directing me to this. I will read, amend and try again. Thank you for your help.