BWLegal - County court claim form received

WalkAbout13

Hi all,
I have received a county court claim form from BW Legal today.
The apparent breach in question happened in July 2017. 
In this instance, the car was driven onto the carpark in question (a residential estate), signs were read and then the vehicle was driven away.  It was only parked for the time it took to read the signs and realise it was not possible to park there. I have told them this countless times previously and asked them to provide evidence that the vehicle was parked for a long period of time as previous images they had sent were only 2 seconds apart on timestamps. They also sent a lot of letters to an old temporary address of mine (which was NOT the address registered with DVLA and never has been and also NOT the address I was living at). I am not entirely sure how they got the details for this address, but they were sending out letters to it including my personal data and I had only lived there for a short period of time.   They sent a letter apologising for this to my current address.

The letter before claim was received (to the right address) in 2018, which I promptly responded to. Their letter before claim had barely any detail on at all and in my reply I further asked them to send me more evidence of the car parked for a significant period of time.  I also asked why they had been sending post to the wrong address and that I was uncomfortable with people I do not know being able to access this data. I asked them why they thought this was my address and how this mistake happened.   I explained their before claim letter had not followed the protocol etc etc.     Following this, nothing happened for 2 years and 9 months (now!).

My first question I guess is, should they have sent another letter before claim? Or is one that is 2 years and 9 months old sufficient? Should they have responded to my reply and addressed my concerns?           
Today I have had a county court claim form come through, which I have acknowledged for now showing them I intend to defend and will get on to writing my defence as soon as possible.     

Any help or suggestions regarding this?

KeithP

WalkAbout13 said:

Today I have had a county court claim form come through, which I have acknowledged for now showing them I intend to defend and will get on to writing my defence as soon as possible.    

Looks like you may have acted too hastily and possibly reduced the time available for filing a Defence.

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

WalkAbout13

24/02/2021.
Oh really, apologies for the naivity, but I thought acknowledging would extend to 28 days?

Redx

But waiting 5 days or more would extend the deadline from 14 to 28 days , but 28 + 5 = 33 days from the issue date , so you have reduced the deadline day to submit your Defence , no Biggie if it's done in time !! But annoying if you needed longer

Name the PPC involved , the claimant 

Email a SAR to the DPO at the PPC involved , attaching a copy of the claim form to it as proof of I D under the GDPR law

I would not be worrying about LBC deadlines etc , get on with dealing with the court claim !!

Ps , make sure that your V5C and driving licence are up to date , to avoid a real fine

WalkAbout13

Thank you for your reply @Redx
Should I also email a SAR to BWLegal?
The claimant is Napier Parking Limited and I am sending a SAR to them now.

Umkomaas

Unlikely that BWL will have anything more to offer than Napier. We only normally suggest a SAR to the PPC. What are you hoping to receive from BWL?

WalkAbout13

Well most of the correspondence that I ever received was from BWLegal, not actually sure I ever received anything from the PPC (although it may have gone to a wrong address?).  

Is there a chance that my SAR will not be responded to in time for when my defence needs to be filed? 

Redx

I doubt that bw legal will have anything useful , I would have told you to send them one if I thought it would help , I never mentioned it , ergo no , no need to send one !! Why would I waste time giving you useless info ?

Napier would correctly have sent an NTK to the address obtained from the DVLA , which is all they were required to do , so it went to the correct address for service , not their fault if it's actually incorrect due to the keeper not updating their V5C

Yes it is feasible that the SAR reply will come after the defence deadline , but you do not need it for your defence to proceed , the SAR reply is of more use at the WS stage in several months time

KeithP

With a Claim Issue Date of 24th February, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 26th February, you have until 4pm on Friday 26th March 2021 to file your Defence. (If you had delayed filing the AoS until tomorrow, you would've had three extra days).

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

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

KeithP

@WalkAbout13, what happened next?

And after getting lots of help, you also left this other thread unfinished...
    ParkingEye Claim Defence - Overstay Welcome Break

WalkAbout13

Apologies!  The ParkingEye thread is closed but on that one, ParkingEye never showed up to court as explained in the thread. I eventually got a letter a week later from ParkingEye saying they had discontinued. I have not heard anything since.

On this one, it went to a hearing. The parking company did not put a map of where the parking meters were located in their evidence and so it simply came down to the judge saying that a contract had not been formed because there was no evidence acceptance was possible.  I won.   

Thanks all for your help and apologies for not coming back on both.