Napier Parking / B W Legal Claim

Matty7077

Hi all,

Firstly I just wanted to say thanks to all for the advice on the 'newbies' forum. It has saved a lot of time and stress although I only came across the forum after I had already filled in a 'transfer of liability' with Napier Parking and outlined my arguments for not paying the PCN through their online appeals system unfortunately (very similar to the defence in paragraph 3 below). Hopefully that doesn't mean I will stand less chance of defending successfully.

I just wanted to post where I'm up to as this has now reached the claim stage and so I would be really grateful for any specific advice regarding my paragraph 3 defence.

Particulars of Claim are below:



And my proposed defence paragraph 2/3 is below. Just to clarify - I was only the driver of the car, not the registered keeper. 

The facts known to the Defendant:

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely, the Claimant sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent and sparse statement of case. The POC appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action". The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s) and what heads of cost are being pursued, making it difficult to respond. However, the vehicle is recognised and it is admitted that the Defendant was the driver.

3. Referring to the POC: The Defendant did not breach any terms and conditions displayed when he parked the vehicle at the Trackside car park, MK9 1LA. Upon parking the vehicle the defendant immediately had to leave to catch a train to Northern England from MK Central station but unfortunately he was unable to pay for the parking on RingGo app in the usual way.

The RingGo app would not accept payment for the parking session and there was no other way of paying for the parking session remotely on the Napier Parking website. After further investigation the defendant ascertained that the RingGo app needed to be updated before payment would be accepted, although this was not immediately obvious and there was no on screen notifications of this requirement.

As soon as the Defendant was able to make a payment for the parking session, he did so although the app would only then allow him to make a payment for a session from the time the payment issue was resolved (Sunday 25th June). To cover himself he also paid for an identical session for the following weekend which he had no intention of using. This was the only way to pay the correct amount to Napier Parking for the parking session at Trackside car park whilst the vehicle was still parked there.

The defendant should only have paid £10.00 for the weekend parking session in total, but he actually paid £15.00 in total (plus RingGo fees), which shows that his best efforts were made to pay for the parking session before it was over and so the entire parking session was covered given the initial issue that was experienced with making payment through the RingGo app.

 

Dates for submission: 

Claim Issue date is July 3rd, 

The AOS was submitted today (July 8th) so final deadline for submission would be 31st July I think?

I also have evidence of both payments mentioned above and some photos of the car park signage.

Gr1pr

Your deadline date is 33 days after the issue date,  so is actually 4pm on 5th August 

Matty7077

Thanks for clarifying the date.. also meant to say I have also seen the advice on a few other threads about changes to the way the defence is submitted too (via MCOL), and a possible update to it this week as well so will keep an eye out for that and update accordingly. 

Umkomaas

after I had already filled in a 'transfer of liability' with Napier Parking

If you transferred liability, how come Napier are pursuing you as the named driver?

Coupon-mad

Matty7077 said:

Thanks for clarifying the date.. also meant to say I have also seen the advice on a few other threads about changes to the way the defence is submitted too (via MCOL), and a possible update to it this week as well so will keep an eye out for that and update accordingly. 

Yep I will do the new template defence this week - shorter - as I'm about to go on holiday & am aware it is needed. 

Matty7077

Umkomaas said:

after I had already filled in a 'transfer of liability' with Napier Parking

If you transferred liability, how come Napier are pursuing you as the named driver?

Sorry just to clarify that bit - I transferred liability to myself using Napier's online form before I had even discovered the forum. I was the driver and used to share the car with the registered keeper but didn't want him to have to deal with it all at the time.

Le_Kirk

Who received the court claim, you as the admitted driver or the registered keeper?  Who received the PCN, the registered keeper or you?  The recipient of the PCN can transfer liability to the driver.

Matty7077

Hi there @Le_Kirk, the original PCN was sent to the registered keeper, but straight after that was received (two years ago now!) I used Napier's online system to transfer liability to me because I was the driver of the vehicle.

Ever since that time all correspondence has been addressed to me (all the initial warning letters etc) then the LBC, and now the court claim.

Matty7077

BW Legal actually went completely quiet for a year - after I replied by email (with the suggested response requesting information I was entitled to under the PAP) to their LBC in June last year - they did respond to that email but didn't answer the questions really. Then a full year later BW legal have seemingly resurrected the claim against me and sent another LBC and now this second one has progressed to the full claim.

I might be reading too much into it, but I did wonder if this could have been tactical on the part of BW Legal, whereby they hope the person may have changed addresses in the meantime, and the person thinks they have decided to discontinue because of the gap in communication from them and is therefore at risk of missing the 2nd round of communication about the claim so they can't submit a timely defence etc? 

Coupon-mad

Yes, that and choosing Summer holidays (and Christmas) to file a batch of claims is common in this industry.

Matty7077

Not sure it's relevant now, but I finally had a belated reply to the email sent to BS Legal regarding the Operator's VAT (at LBC stage) which I thought I'd share for anyone who might find this useful:

Good Morning, We write in reference to your recent contact, the contents of which has been duly noted. Please be advised that should the parking app have not been working, and you were unable to purchase a ticket from the machine, you should have left the car park as stated clearly within the signage on site. Debt recovery costs are contractually agreed by the motorist when visiting the car park.  They only apply when the opportunity to pay the parking charge has expired and the parking company has been forced to commence debt recovery activities.  Such contractual costs are recognised by the courts as covering debt recovery activity between the expiry of the parking charge notice and the commencement of litigation, including pre-litigation correspondence.   The fees we charge our clients for our services are subject to VAT.  However, these are separate and distinct from contractual debt recovery costs recoverable by our client from the motorist.