Letter of claim

**Safz_78** · 4th July 2019, 13:26:PM

Sorry forgot to mention this imp thing
in a state of panic i have emailed bw legal a readymade template which i found on internet.
dont know i ve done right thing.

Dear Sirs,

I am in receipt of your Letter of Claim, dated ac no /1st july 2019

Your letter contains insufficient detail of the claim and fails to provide copies of evidence your client is presumably relying upon. As such I must ask you to provide further information as detailed below, before I can decide how to proceed.

As of 1st October 2017 a new protocol has been applicable to debt claims, known as the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. I presume that your client, UKP is aware of this? Since court proceedings have not yet been issued, this new protocol clearly applies and must therefore be complied with, by all parties.

Your Letter of Claim lacks specificity, and as such I believe it breaches both the requirements of the previously applicable Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct (paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c)) and the new Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (paragraphs 3.1(a)-(d), 5.1 and 5.2. Please treat this letter as a formal request for all the currently outstanding documents and information that the protocol now requires your client to provide. Your client must not issue proceedings without complying with that protocol. I reserve the right to inform the court of any failure of the Claimant to comply with the protocol, and furthermore to ask the court to stay the claim and order your client to comply with its pre-action obligations.

As solicitors, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, who specialise in legal recovery, you must surely be familiar with the requirements of both the Practice Direction which was applicable before 1st October 2017, and of the new Protocol which applies thereafter. Your client UKP should also be aware of them. As you and UKP must know, the Practice Direction and Protocol bind all potential litigants, whatever the size or type of the claim. The objectives of pre-action conduct and protocols are to assist parties in: understanding the claim and their respective positions in relation to it; to make decisions about how to proceed; to try to settle the issues without court proceedings; to consider a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution to assist withsettlement; to support the efficient management of those proceedings; and to reduce the costs of resolving the dispute. I therefore find it wholly inappropriate that a firm of solicitors who specialise in legal recovery are sending a consumer (myself) a vague and unevidenced 'Letter of Claim' in complete ignorance of the pre-existing Practice Direction and the new Protocol.

Nobody, including your client, is immune from the requirements and obligations of the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. As such, I require NCP to comply with its obligations by sending me the following information/documents:

1. an explanation of the cause of action

2. The evidence they have that confirms that I was, as they claim, the driver at the time of the alleged contravention

3. what the details of the claim are; where it is claimed the vehicle was parked, for how long, how the monies being claimed arose and have been calculated

4. Is the claim for a contractual breach? If so, what is the date of the agreement? Please provide the names of the parties to it along with a copy of that contract.

5. Is the claim for trespass? If so, provide details.

6. Provide me a copy of the contract with the landowner under which authority to bring the claim is asserted, as required by the IPC code of practice section B, clause 1.1: establishing yourself as the creditor.

7. a map showing where any signs were displayed, including those upon entering the BUGLE AND HEWITT STREET where the alleged contravention took place

8. details of the signs displayed (size of sign, size of font, height at which displayed)

I can only assume your client pursuing is me as the driver, and I would like to see their evidence of who was driving the vehicle. As PATAS and POPLA Lead Adjudicator and barrister, Henry Michael Greenslade, clarified in 2015 with regards to keeper liability: “there is no reasonable presumption in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver, and operators should never suggest anything of the sort.”

If your client does not provide me with the above information, then I will ask the court to impose sanctions on your client and to order a stay of the proceedings, pursuant to paragraphs 13,15(b) and (c) and 16 of the Practice Direction, as referred to in paragraph 7.2 of the new Protocol.

Until your client has complied with its obligations and provided this information, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim and to consider my position in relation to it, and it is entirely premature (and a waste of costs and court time) for your client to issue proceedings in the meantime.

Yours faithfully

Letter of claim

Letter of claim

Comment

Announcement

Court Claim ?