3 questions re: BW Legal claim

Ukay1

@Coupon-mad so another update.  I received a letter with the claim from BW.  The letter is dated 24th May and it says “if we do not hear from you with 14 days of the date of this letter we shall apply to court to enter a county court judgment against you”.

The my have attached a copy of the original claim form to it dated 10th April but with my correct address on there underlined in red.

I assume if I do not enter my defence by close of business today that they will on Monday apply for a judgment in default.  So rather than play anymore games I will file my defence today.  

Have looked over the template defence on this forum and it is excellent!  So I have used it to craft my defence which I shall submit today both to the CNBC and BW via email.

Thank you so much for your continued advice and support.

I shall let you know how it goes!

Johnersh

Cheeky copulators!

Ok so break this down...

1. Claimant fails to serve the claim form
2. Despite not having seen anything (and perhaps ill- advised, given he'd not seen anything) Defendant purports to acknowledge service, which essentially rectified any fault within the claim form or in relation to service.
3. Claimant acknowledges error of service.
4. Claimant threatens default judgment (it's not clear on what basis. If it was not properly served, D never saw it. If it was properly served, there is now an amendment to the claim form (proposed after the date of service) that needs a court order/court approval.
5. Claimant serves an amended claim form changes marked in red (as per CPR) but without referring to any order permitting the amendment (which should also be written in red on the claim form. Clue: there is no such order)

As I see it, the claim form was served/acknowledged by the time of the amendment, so this technically requires a consent order, time extension and for the claimant to bear the costs. I suspect the claimant already knew of the error by the time they sent their letter to you, seeking to fudge this rather than follow the correct procedure.

If it were me, i'd ask to see a consent order and let them know you need time as a result of their error.

Again, the cheapest/easiest course for the claimant would have been to issue a new claim and discontinue the old one on the basis that it was never served nor determined by the court. That's cheaper than a consent order. But then, these cases are rarely run by solicitors anyway.

Ukay1

Hi @Johnersh yes, you’ve understood all the facts that are known to me.  Thank you for your suggested course of action.  

The only thing I suppose is that there’s nothing stopping BW from, as you say, rectifying the situation by issuing a new claim form.  Are they likely to do so?  I suspect they probably will which means I have to play these fun and games again.

i think it would better serve me to file my defence now and see where it gets me.  By my calculation the land owner has been deprived of a grand total of £0.60 and I have made mention of this in the defence (para 3 as I used the template defence) so my hope is a judge will find that BW’s claim for £260 is an unenforceable penalty.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, folks.

Thanks again to each of you for all the helpful guidance and advice - especially @Coupon-mad. 

Johnersh

Fair enough. I'm churlish enough to make them spend money and hold them to procedural rules, but that's rather easier for me.

Ukay1

@Coupon-mad I have seen elsewhere in these forums that I should await the Directions questionnaire from the CNBC and that if I don’t receive it in a week that I should email the CNBC asking for it.

Is there any reason I should not complete a copy and send it to CNBC and the Claimant if the CNBC don’t send the DQ to me within a week of my filing the Defence?  

Just thinking doing so would save me having to watch out for their email and potentially missing the DQ filing date.

Thank you. 

Umkomaas

It can take 4-6 weeks for the DQ to be sent to you (via Royal Mail). The CNBC are in a bit of an admin mess. Just wait patiently for it to come through, keep an eye on your MCOL history which will update on its despatch. Given the admin chaos, I wouldn't risk downloading your own, sending off and hoping the CNBC will link that up with your file, which is likely to be somewhere (electronically) well down the pile.

Coupon-mad

Ukay1 said:

@Coupon-mad I have seen elsewhere in these forums that I should await the Directions questionnaire from the CNBC and that if I don’t receive it in a week that I should email the CNBC asking for it.

Is there any reason I should not complete a copy and send it to CNBC and the Claimant if the CNBC don’t send the DQ to me within a week of my filing the Defence?  

Yes because the online version is newly updated (as discussed in lots of threads).  It's a bad version.  Read some threads.

Also the DQ won't come by email.

Ukay1

Ok - thanks, @Umkomaas & @Coupon-mad.  Will hold off on sending anything to the CNBC.

@Coupon-mad - have read a number of the posts.  When you say it is a bad version, are you referring to the fact that from last month the DQ
now makes mediation mandatory?  

Given that change was announced by the govt a while ago, do we expect that the change anytime soon?  

That sounds like overall a positive development for those in our position as it increases the costs for the claimants and gives them another thing they can get wrong, no?

As always, I remain grateful for the wisdom received from the members of this forum.

Coupon-mad

It's not positive; it is terrible that Mediation is mandatory for parking scam roboclaims.   Mediator's tell Defendants to offer money and that is wholly unsuited to a scam.

It's already mandatory but as you will see on other threads, the CNBC is still sending out the old version at the mo.  That's the one to use if offered. Wait for the letter.

Ukay1

Thanks for clearing up my misconception, @Coupon-mad.  Shall hang tight.