Parking ticket

Your rights depend on whether you’ve parked on public or private land:

• Public Land: penalty charges

Parking is usually run by the local council, whose traffic wardens (now called local authority civil enforcement officers) can issue parking tickets. Other public land is managed by the police.

The local parking rules are given on street signs. If you break the parking rules, you can be issued with a parking ticket called a ‘Penalty Charge Notice’.

If you don't think you should have received a Penalty Charge Notice, the council must consider your appeal or challenge and must consider both set grounds and also use discretion over special circumstances. See the next section.

• Private Land (such as supermarkets, shopping centres, train stations and hospitals): parking charges

When you park on private land (such as a car park) you must follow the land owner’s rules and charges. If you don’t you have broken your 'contract' with the landowner.

The difference of parking on private land is that the landowner (and any private parking companies acting on their behalf) is not allowed to fine or penalise drivers who break their rules.

All they can do is charge for any lost income or other losses or damages. Therefore this is unlikely to be more than the parking charge they could have made to another motorist using the parking space and any admin expenses. So it is arguable that charges such as £50 or £100 are an excessive sum and amount to an illegal penalty.

You may have received a notice on your windscreen or a letter sent to the registered keeper of the vehicle.

The landowner should have a procedure in place to consider any appeal or challenge to the charges (see next section).

1: You didn’t own the vehicle when the ticket was issued. The evidence should be the name and address of the person you sold the vehicle to or bought it from. You could also provide proof of purchase or a copy of the DVLA registration form.

2: The vehicle was stolen when the ticket was issued. You could provide a police crime report or insurance claim to prove this.

3: You didn't break the parking rules or the charge is unfair. For example:

• Your permitted time had not run out
• The vehicle had broken down and steps were being taken to remove it as soon as possible
• You were legally loading or unloading
• You had a proper reason to overstay the permitted time (such as the landowner allowing you to verify parking with a shop purchase, which can be proved by the time on your shopping receipt.

4: The rules were not clear: Here you can argue that the place where the vehicle was parked wasn't properly marked out or the signage setting out the terms and conditions of parking were not prominent, easily readable or clear about rules and charges.

If you've got your mobile phone or a camera with you, take photos of the car, road signs and road markings, focusing on anything that is unclear or misleading.

5: Someone prevented the traffic warden to give you a ticket at the scene (applicable to public parking only). The appeal from this is if you don't think this is true. Perhaps someone was with you who could give a supporting letter or statement.

6: You’ve been charged more than you should be. You can appeal (or request a refund) if you're charged more than the amount which applies in your circumstances.

7: The procedure for issuing the ticket or notice wasn’t carried out properly.

With public parking tickets, if  a charge certificate was issued before an appeal was decided then the correct procedure has not been followed.

With private land, the land owner can sue the registered keeper of the vehicle (even if they were not the driver), but not if any Notice to the Registered Keeper was sent out earlier than 28 days after issuing a ticket.

8:You paid already. Here you would need proof of earlier payment, such as a receipt or bank statement.

9: You could not pay at the time as the parking meter or all nearby pay-and-display machines were faulty. If you’ve got a mobile phone or camera with you, take pictures of the broken meter and/or machines. Here you should only offer to pay the normal charge not any penalty.

10: Compassionate or emergency special circumstances apply. You can ask for the charge to be cancelled in special circumstances, such as having to deal with an illness or road traffic accident or bereavement. In this case you could offer to obtain a doctor’s note to support your challenge.

11: The charge made is excessive (private land only). Here you can challenge the amount charged as being more than the landowner’s loss of income and reasonable admin expenses caused by your parking in breach of the rules. Although this is still an unclear area, many experts think that that is all the private land owner can charge under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

1. Contact the telephone number on the ticket or letter and ask for the fine to be suspended or frozen whilst you challenge the ticket. This may mean paying ‘early payment’ charge.
2. Write in to challenge the ticket (the address to use is on the ticket, notice or letter). Usually the local council with public land and the ticket company with private land.
3. Sometimes if your challenge is rejected there is a second right of appeal – that you can use.
4. Make a formal appeal.

• With public land this is to the independent adjudicator
• With private land this is  the ‘Parking on Private Land Appeals’ service.

If you lose on appeal, with private land it is not binding on you and so you can still use the small claims court to claim back a refund or not pay (and wait to see if they take you to court).

Note: with private land you also have the option of just not paying. Without a court judgement against you they cannot use debt collectors to collect the charge. So, if you don’t pay, it is up to the landowner to decide if they want to take you to the small claims court to get a court order to force payment. However, they may not want a court decision that reduces their £100 or £50 charge to the landowner’s actual loss of income and reasonable admin expenses - which is likely to be minimal. So letting them know you want your day in court might be enough to end the matter.

This is a grey area and it is always possible that if they did take you to court a local judge might not agree with this logic and might uphold the full charge – so you may feel this is too much hassle for £50.