Replying to BW Legal, Threads merged |
Replying to BW Legal, Threads merged |
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 - 10:38
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#1
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New Member Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 2 Jan 2017 Member No.: 89,392 |
Hi. Just arrived at the forum after being reccommended here over at MSE forums. I've been posting a while over there initially because of a PCN issues by VCS and now BW Legal are involved.
Back in March (1/3/16) I parked in a car park I use for work three times a week. As usual I paid and displayed. Unfortunately for whatever reason when I came back to the car I had a parking charge notice for £60 as the ticket I'd purchased wasn't displayed and had flipped upside down onto the dashboard. I first emailed VCS a copy of the ticket explaining the weather conditions must have caused the ticket to move in the car. They replied with a letter stating that my ticket was not displayed correctly and as no mitigating circumstances have been given they saw no reason to warrant cancellation of the notice. I then replied stating they didn't provide tickets which stick on and that they were welcome to take me to court. Since then we've had three more similar letters from VCS each one becoming more 'urgent' and we haven't responded. In mid June 2016 we got a letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd asking for £160 which we ignored. They followed up that letter (16th July) with similar trying to frighten us into paying with a letter talking about landmark ruling Beavis v Parking Eye. After taking advice elsewhere I chose to ignore said letters. Then in December (around the 10th) 2016 I started recieving correspondence from BW Legal asking for the amount of £100PCN plus initial legal costs of £60. It states they require payment in full within 16 days of the letter and if we fail to do so or provide reasons for non payment in that time frame they will see their clients instructions to commence legal proceeding against us in the form of a county court claim form in the county court. Needing a response and not being sure what to reply with, I went with the below: QUOTE Dear Sir/Madam, RE: Your reference ****** I deny any debt to Vehicle Control Services Ltd and refer you to my initial response to your client regarding the ticket I purchased on the day of the alleged offence and retain to this day. Regarding your intention to claim £60 for legal costs, I refer you to CPR 27.14. If your client intends court proceedings, please provide a properly formatted Letter Before Claim that fully complies with the requirements of the Practice Direction on Pre-action conduct and Protocols. I will then be in a position to provide a more detailed response. Yours Faithfully They initially responsed Thurday this week with a letter stating they hadn't recieved a response, now today they've replied with: QUOTE We refer to the above matter and your recent correspondence. Our Client is seeking recovery of the PCN recovery costs n the sum of £54. We refer you to the bottom of the Tariff Board, which states, '[the Claimant} will be entitled to take legal proceeding to recover any outstnading charges, including interest and any addition costs incurred.' We confirm Our Client elects to rely on the court of appeal ruling in Chaplair Limited v Kumari [2015] EWCA Civ 798, 'that does not alter the fact that it remains a contractual entitlement which the court will enforce subject to its equitable power to disallow unreasonable expenses. There is nothing in the rule making powers in respect of the CPR which enable the rules to exclude or override that contractual entitlement and I therefore agree with Arden LJ that the judge had jurisdiction to assess the costs free from any restraints imposed by CPR 27.14. Obviously through the course of the weekend I've got bit of reading to do on these thing to get a reply together. The BTW car is registered in my partners name. I replied early on with a scanned image of the parking ticket from the day admitting I was driving on the day in question. I'll upload a couple of images of the signs up in the car park. One of the parking notices in the car park: This post has been edited by Perryqhill: Sat, 21 Jan 2017 - 10:46 |
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Sat, 21 Jan 2017 - 12:41
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 17,088 Joined: 8 Mar 2013 Member No.: 60,457 |
There's also, unlike Beavis, no mention of any sum involved for failing to display so how can you contract for any sum?
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