Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hello

I receieved a claim form on in May 2025, and submitted an AOS and defence in July.  By December 2025, the claim was transferred to my local court as per the DQ.

Please find here the claim form :

The defence I submitted is at the bottom of this message.  Unfortunately I don't believe I seeked legal advice on here for this specific case and filed a defence which I had previously used for a similar case.

the case is now listed for a hearing at the end of this month. BW legal have sent their defence to my defence accross this week, and it mainly states that interest is not charged and quotes the signage that they rely upon which states no parking at any time.

I am the RK of the vehicle. The date of the parking is December 2024.  I believe the driver of the vehicle parked there only for a short time (less than 5 minutes) and once they realised they did not have permission to park there they moved the car.

Any help with this would be appreciated







1. The Defendant denies any liability for this claim.

2. There is a lack of precise detail in the Particulars of Claim
(PoC) in respect of the factual and legal allegations made against
the Defendant such that the PoC do not comply with CPR 16.4.

3. The Defendant is unable to plead properly to the PoC because:
(a) The contract referred to is not detailed or attached to the
PoC in accordance with CPR PD 16(7.5);

(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or
clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or
contracts) which is/are relied on;

(c) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity the exact
time when the breaches occurred and how long it is alleged that
the vehicle was parked before the parking charges were allegedly
incurred;

(e) The PoC do not state exactly how the claim for statutory
interest is calculated;

(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim are the
parking charges and what proportion is damages;

(g) The PoC states that the Claimant is suing the defendant as the
driver or the keeper. The claimant obviously knows whether the
defendant is being sued as the driver or the keeper and should not
be permitted to plead alternative causes of action.

4. The Defendant has attached to this defence a copy of an order
made at another court which the allocating judge ought to make at
this stage so that the Defendant can then know and understand the
case which he/she/it faces and can then respond properly to the
claim.

Statement of truth

I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true. I
understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought
against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement
in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest
belief in its truth.

Thanks for the reply.

I do not have the original NTK, and have not appealed or engaged with the company in any way - except from the AoS and defence submitted on Mcol.

I have enclosed the evidence which they have sent in a pack, i believe it includes the original Ntk. There is also a skeleton argument and a witness statement from a paralegal at BW.

(g) The PoC states that the Claimant is suing the defendant as the
driver or the keeper.

Do they? As far as I can see they don't state in what capacity they're seeking to hold you liable.

There is also a skeleton argument and a witness statement from a paralegal at BW.

We need to see this. What is your deadline for submitting Witness Statements?

Hello

Any advice regarding this? If i have messed up by not submitted WS, is there any point in attending court, or can I arrange to pay the balance on a monthly basis?

Had a very quick scan through the evidence pack and noted the following;

NtK is not compliant as it omits mandatory wording from Schedule 4 9(2)(f) of PoFA.

The relevant term is as follows;

THE NOTICE MUST warn the keeper that if, after the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice is given—

(i)the amount of the unpaid parking charges specified under paragraph (d) has not been paid in full, and

(ii)the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver,

the creditor will (if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met) have the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid;


The legislation requires that the keeper be warned that the parking operators NtK is required to comply with all conditions of the schedule in order for the parking operator to rely on PoFA to transfer liability to the keeper.

The sentence in bold above is never stated on the NtK and therefore the NtK is not compliant since THE NOTICE MUST contain this warning.


Secondly, the 'period of parking' is dubious - it's a single timestamp and not a 'period' - that's a possible PoFA point but; how does the Claimant intend to prove any parking took place? (verses a temporary stop)

Thirdly, (just noticed) the NtK does not include the mandatory wording required by 9(2)(e) - THE NOTICE MUST STATE that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver


Further point - I've just gone through all evidence and there is absolutely nothing which demonstrates the period of time the driver was stationary - not even the pictures are timestamped - I would save this point for Court rather than the WS - put something very loose in the WS which does not draw specific attention to this point just in case they go to full hearing.

I would only submit a skeleton defence anyway. Their WS is only skeleton so I don't see a problem in that respect.

The most obvious issue (IMHO) is that the signs are entirely prohibitive.
In Beavis ParkingEye offered the right to park, in exchange for a promise from the driver, and the Supreme Court held that a contact had been formed (not that anybody asked them).

Broadly speaking, a promise (deemed or actual) is only enforceable at law if it forms part of a contract - which requires an offer of consideration acceptance (often by performance), and consideration (whether at the time, or in the form of a promise) from the party accepting the offer.

Regardless of how clear the signs are, you cannot form a contract without offering something. It would take a particularly motivated District Judge and much violence against the English language to find that the signs prohibiting parking were actually making an offer of a right to park in exchange for a promise to pay a parking charge.

Thank you all for this valuable insight and taking the time to look through the evidence.

I have prepared a draft copy of this witness statement. I have not provided one before, please let me know if it is okay. 

There are 3 pictures of the vehicle provided in the evidence, and the timetstamp is at the bottom left in yellow. They are difficult to see but i believe 2 of them show the vehicle parked at 14:40 and the other at 14:41. 

 Do I email the WS to the court and to the claimants email?

IMHO it is bad form to include legal argument in a witness statement. However everyone, particularly the parking companies and their lawyers, does that, so don't expect any criticism on that point by anyone other than me. IMHO (again) the proper way to clarify the defence submitted is though a skeleton argument.

Generally, once your defence has been submitted, you cannot amend your defence or add new points to it (as opposed to explaining or expanding upon the legal points already submitted) without the permission of the court. Whilst the rules in the small claims track are often applied more loosely (it is intended largely for litigants in person, and the cost of legal representation is generally not recoverable unless the other party is deemed to have behaved particularly unreasonably), it would seem prudent to nominally request permission in whatever form (or title) or legal argument you are submitting , and to explain that as stated in your original defence, it was not practicable to advance a meaningful defence as the PoC were inadequate and did not disclose any cause of action. Now that C has clarified their position in that the claim is purportedly brought under contract, despite the facts of the case seeming not to support this, you are now have a slightly less nebulous flawed claim to defend.

For a contract to be formed there has to be an offer of valuable consideration. That does not have to be the right to park. The issue is that there was no offer of any valuable consideration, communicated by the sign, or othwerwise and therefore no contract could be formed by any deemed acceptance. The offer of consideration that one might expect from a sign communicating an offer capable of forming a contract by acceptance by performance would be the right to park, but the fact that there was no offer of a right to park is not what defeats any claim of contractual liability, it is the lack of *any* valuable consideration being offered to the driver.

This is your case, not ours, but I would suggest that your understanding of the phrase "front and centre" differs from mine and DWMB2's. What you do with that information has no financial effect on myself or DWMB2.

As regards the "rules" of the small claims track. Perhaps the most important is "never ambush a District Judge" (regardless of whether the court has required or even invited disclosure of skeleton arguments (and regardless of whether the author of such skeleton arguments has written "Skeleton Argument" or "Witless Statement" at the top of the page.