Free Traffic Legal Advice

If you want to transfer liability then you are obliged to give a 'current address for service'.

You did not.

Your argument i.e. one which you as keeper may make in court proceedings, is that if they assert that you are liable as keeper then the NTK is non-compliant.

IMO, this is not about transferring liability and you should stop promoting this because on its own it must fail.

As regards substantive defences as opposed to purely CPR-based ones(which might indeed exist), I therefore suggest you start by scrutinising your 'relevant land' argument on its own merits which IMO has far more merit.

I suggest you re-order your arguments in preparation for a hearing because you won't convince the creditor to drop their pursuit of you as keeper:

'The Collective' cannot be considered to meet the requirement to specify the 'relevant land' for the purposes of para. 9 of Schedule 4 because it fails to give the keeper sufficient detail in order for them to compile an informed defence;

But, if the court find that it is, then the details of the driver's current address for service you provided to the claimant should be considered to meet the requirements of PoFA and therefore the claimant's claim against the keeper must fail.

..you would claim.

You would add this to your defence but don't argue the toss with the creditor's 'enforcement' process.

The more arguable points in your defence(which you file after they issue a claim)the more b789's procedural arguments might persuade them to cut their losses AKA not pay the hearing fee.

The ball's in their court and whatever you say, however eloquently presented, is unlikely(AKA not going) to convince the creditor to drop their claim. These companies go to the wire.

I think b789 has a template LOC response which can be amended. For me, simple statements like 'I do not agree that...', 'I dispute that A did B etc.' and will ***** (whatever adjective you feel appropriate e.g. rigorously, strongly etc.) defend any claim.... would suffice.

Yes — that’s exactly what it looks like. You’ve essentially got two separate BW Legal workflows operating in parallel:


This mismatch happens because BW Legal operates in silos: one team is chasing payment, the other is processing “not the driver” declarations, and they don’t always update each other’s systems in real time.

This is good for you because if they ever tried to issue a claim now, you would be able to point to:


I suggest you preserve both:


You can send one short, response to BW Legal, referencing both communications and asking for written confirmation that all processing of your personal data is ceased.

Subject: Confirmation of Case Closure – Conflicting Correspondence

Dear BW Legal,

I note your email dated 11 August 2025 stating:

“As the issue has been resolved, no further action is required from you at this time.”

This directly contradicts your earlier “Final Demand” dated 16 June 2025 threatening escalation to a Letter of Claim.

For clarity: I provided the full name and serviceable address of the driver to your client, Countrywide Parking Management Limited, on 9 April 2025. Under Paragraph 5(1)(b) of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, any right to recover these charges from me as registered keeper has ceased.

Please now confirm, in writing, that:

• My personal data has been removed from your systems under Article 17 UK GDPR.
• Neither you nor your client will pursue me for this matter in future.
• I will retain your email of 11 August 2025 as evidence should this matter be escalated further.

Yours faithfully,

[Your Name]

Respond with the following:

Subject: Repeated request for driver details – liability already transferred

Dear BW Legal,

Your email of 4 October 2025 repeats a request I have already satisfied.

On 9 April 2025 I provided your client, Countrywide Parking Management, with the driver’s full name and address for service:

Name: [FULL NAME]
Address: The Collective, Nash House, Old Oak Lane, London NW10 6FF
Email: [EMAIL]
Phone: [PHONE]

Countrywide acknowledged my correspondence on 15 April 2025 and confirmed they would action the transfer. On 11 August 2025 your own email stated “the issue has been resolved” and “no further action is required from you at this time”.

PoFA Schedule 4 requires only that the keeper provides the name and a current address for service of the driver before proceedings. It does not require a signed statement, a portal submission, or any particular form. I have complied. Any assertion that you or your client are “legally entitled” to pursue me as keeper is wrong in law. In any event, your client’s NtK was not compliant with PoFA.

Furthermore, I must highlight that different departments within BW Legal appear to be working at cross-purposes.

On 11 August 2025, your email stated that “the issue has been resolved” and “no further action is required”. Despite this, a separate team continues to send automated demands and duplicate requests for the same information. This demonstrates a lack of internal communication and oversight, resulting in contradictory correspondence and unnecessary processing of my personal data.

Please ensure your internal workflows are synchronised and that all departments are aware that liability has already been transferred.

You must now update your file to reflect that keeper liability is extinguished and cease processing my personal data for enforcement. There is no lawful basis for continued processing against me; reliance on “legitimate interests” fails where the target is not liable.

Confirm in writing within 7 days that:

1. your records have been updated to the named driver shown above,
2. all processing of my personal data for enforcement has ceased and my data has been removed from your active systems,
3. you have advised your client accordingly.

If you continue to contact me about payment or threaten recovery as keeper, I will escalate complaints to the ICO and DVLA and I will consider a claim under section 168 DPA 2018 for distress arising from unlawful processing. Further duplicate requests for the same information will be treated as harassment and misuse of data.

Additionally, should you continue to pursue me as keeper despite having the driver’s details and despite your conflicting internal communications, I will refer this matter to the SRA for potential breaches of the Standards and Regulations (misleading communications, failure to supervise, and improper reliance on PoFA), and to the FCA regarding your debt-collection practices.

Unless you are sending a compliant Letter of Claim to which I will respond in due course, do not contact me again save to confirm closure.

Yours faithfully,

[Your name]
[Your address]
[Date]

Their reply (by email):

"xx November 2025

Dear xxx,

Please be advised that our Client will not accept a transfer of liability statement that is not signed by yourself.
without this we are unable to bring this to the attention of our Client.

We can confirm that these matter were issued within compliance to POFA as the notice to keeper was issued withing 14 days of the contravention.

Please note that on our correspondence where it states resolved or no further action is relating to the separate contacts raised not the matter a whole, liability has not been transferred as we have not received the signed statement we have requested.

In response to your allegation of harassment, note that Section 1(3)(c) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (Act) expressly states that a course of conduct that someone alleges to be harassment will not be deemed so if the person who pursued it shows that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable. We hold a legitimate interest in contacting you on behalf of our Client regarding this matter and the subsequent outstanding balance. There are 6 different lawful bases for processing personal data laid out within Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and enshrined in UK law within the Data Protection Act 2018. The bases that we rely on are the contract basis, which applies where the processing is necessary to enforce a contract, and Legitimate Interest, which covers the needs of a business unless there is an overriding interest in protecting this data. If you would like to know more about this, we would refer you to the ICO website on this matter.

Should you have any further queries please contact our office on 0113 487 0430, or sign in or register on our Customer Portal at www.bwlegal.co.uk.

Alternatively you could contact us via live chat at https://www.bwlegal.co.uk/help/contact-us which is open from Monday to Friday 8am - 5pm and Saturday 9am - 2:45pm.

Your response is required in order for us to proceed, and you can reply directly to this email.

If you would like to view the full contact history or submit a new query, please log into our Customer Portal by clicking here.

Yours sincerely,

BW Legal"

Not sure what to make of the harassment bit.

We've already been asked for a signed statement by bw legal in April, but we replied that the TOL had already been sent to Countrywide and acknowledged (around 15 April) before bw legal got involved. So they can't say their client requires a signed statement.

I'm not sure why issuing the NtK within 14 days makes it magically PoFA-compliant.

How embarrassing (legally) that this firm can expose their utter incompetence this way. Their nonsense email means:

1. Their “signed statement” requirement is invented.
PoFA contains no provision requiring:

It requires only:

You already provided that to the data controller (Countrywide) in early April. Countrywide acknowledged receipt on 15 April.

2. BW Legal cannot retrospectively impose a condition which PoFA does not require.
They claim the NtK was PoFA compliant because it was “issued within 14 days”. This is a red flag highlighting they don’t understand PoFA at all. PoFA requires it to be "given", not "issued" within the relevant period.

Irrespective, timing is only one requirement of the NtK. If any of the mandatory 9(2) wording is missing or wrong, keeper liability does not arise, regardless of timing.

You already know that their NtK has multiple 9(2) failures.

3. The harassment paragraph is posturing.
You did not accuse them of civil harassment. You stated they are unlawfully processing your data.

They are trying to intimidate you with a statute you haven’t even relied on. Their reference to legitimate interests does not save them:

Continued processing in the face of:

is unlawful data processing, regardless of their posturing.

4. Their competing workflows (collections vs. “TOL”) are causing the problem.
You already have a BW Legal email confirming:

They cannot now deny that. This contradiction is gold dust.

Email the following to BW Legal and CC Countrywide:

Subject: Your email dated [insert date] – PoFA, timing and unlawful processing

Dear BW Legal,

I refer to your recent email in which you state that the Notice to Keeper was “issued within 14 days” and therefore “PoFA compliant”, and in which you again demand a signed statement to transfer liability.

First, your understanding of PoFA timing is embarrassingly wrong. Schedule 4 paragraph 9(4) requires that a Notice to Keeper sent by post must be "given" so that it is delivered not later than 14 days beginning with the day after the parking event. Paragraph 9(6) then states that a notice sent by post is deemed to have been given on the second working day after posting. In other words, it is not enough that the NtK is “issued within 14 days”. It must be issued early enough that, allowing for the two working day deemed service rule, it is deemed given within that 14 day period. Simply being “issued within 14 days” is legally meaningless unless the deemed date of service still falls within the 14 days.

Second, the full name and address for service of the driver were provided to your client, Countrywide Parking Management, on 9 April. Your client acknowledged receipt on 15 April. Schedule 4 does not require a signed statement, a declaration, the use of a web portal or any other invented process. It requires only that the keeper gives the name and a current address for service of the driver before proceedings. I have complied. Your client has acknowledged that I have complied. Your insistence on a signed statement is a requirement of your own making and has no basis in the statute.

Third, your client’s NtK fails multiple mandatory requirements of PoFA paragraph 9(2) in any event, so it is incapable of creating keeper liability even if the driver had never been named. You are therefore wrong in law to assert that your client is “legally entitled to pursue” me as keeper.

You also suggest that references in your own correspondence to matters being “resolved” or that “no further action is required” only apply to “separate contacts” and not to the underlying account. That simply underlines the problem. Different parts of BW Legal are issuing contradictory communications. One team tells me the issue is resolved and no further action is required; another continues to send demands and repeats the same requests for information that has already been provided. This demonstrates that your internal workflows and data are not synchronised and that you are not processing my personal data with the accuracy and care that data protection law requires.

Your long passage about the Protection from Harassment Act and legitimate interests is a distraction. My primary complaint is that you are continuing to process my personal data for enforcement purposes when (a) the driver’s details have been supplied and acknowledged, and (b) the NtKs do not comply with PoFA. There is no legitimate interest in pursuing a person who is not liable, and no lawful basis for continued enforcement processing against the keeper in those circumstances.

I now require written confirmation within 7 days that your records have been updated to show the named driver already provided, that all processing of my personal data for enforcement purposes has ceased, and that my data has been removed from your active systems. If you continue to pursue me as registered keeper, or continue to demand re-submission of information already supplied and acknowledged, I will escalate this to the ICO and DVLA, and I will consider a claim under section 168 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for distress arising from unlawful processing.

Yours faithfully,

[Your name]
[Your address]
[Date]

     Hi,

The email received today confirms complete havoc at BW Legal (emphasis mine):

"Account Details
Contact Date: 12 August 2025
Our Reference: xxxx
Our Client: Countrywide Parking Management Limited
Query Type: Letter Of Claim Response

28 November 2025
Dear xxxxx,
As we have not received a response from you in the past 45 days, we have now closed the contact associated with your account, presuming that your issue has been resolved.
No further action is required from you at this time.
If this is an error or if you require further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. To view the full contact history or submit a new query, please log into our Customer Portal by clicking here.
Thank you for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
BW Legal"

We last wrote to them on 14 Nov...
Not sure what the contact date refers to