You can ask our solicitors online for advice on how to appeal parking tickets using the question box on the front of our website or the following free legal advice guide may answer your questions. 

Whenever you get a parking fine  or parking ticket from the local authority or penalty charge from a private car park, check these points before paying. First and foremost check whether it is a council owned or privately run.  The rules are different when appealing a parking ticket.

Please note, it’s a very brief overview.  It’s not intended to be comprehensive advice covering every scenario.

Check carefully the wording and details on the ticket.  Never neglect to do this.  Many of them are unenforceable.  Check that the details of your vehicle are correct.  Check the wording on the ticket and the manner of issue is lawful.  Check the legislation quoted and that it applies to your situation.

Car Park Signage

At the scene, check that the signs and road markings are visible and well maintained.  Take photographs of them and their absence if possible.

Always ask the council to provide you with a traffic management order.  Check that the restrictions contained therein match those they seek to enforce.  If that fails, the parking ticket will fail.

If the ticket was issued by CCTV check for camera warning signs.  Also check that the date of issue complies with the requirements.  If it is more than 28 days after the contravention, they are time barred.

If you are looking at appealing a parking ticket, you must act within the time frames you have been given.  If you fail to do so, the Councils will get judgment against you without having to work.  You should keep a copy of everything and send correspondence recorded delivery.

It is much more difficult appealing a parking ticket issued on Council car parks because all the loopholes have now been closed and the council’s paperwork and signage is generally top-notch.

Appealing Private Land Parking charges

You know what happens, you stayed in the supermarket car park for 2 ½ hours instead of two hours or you didn’t put your registration into the machine inside the shop or suchlike.

These charges are not fines, they are contractual charges for parking.  By parking or staying over you agree to the terms written on signs located in the car park.  But you have to know the signs are there and you have to read them.

Some airports will charge you just for stopping!  It does beg the question as to how you can read the sign without stopping but that’s one to argue in court or appeal.

Should you be heading through the appeal process on a “technicality” route instead, try and concentrate on aspects which have been provided on the ticket. Hence, supposing you’ve got a ticket stating you parked incorrectly in mkt. street car park and in reality you were in Market Road you could possibly claim that the offence did not happen and therefore win the appeal.

Appeal Parking tickets POPLA

From experience, appealing to the parking companies however is generally a waste of time because they are just interested in getting money out of you.  You can also appeal to POPLA but the writer has never yet known an appeal succeed.  In any event the grounds for appealing a very limited of which the most common is that you simply were not there on that date and time or anything remotely resembling that date and time.

There is a significant growth of private enterprises issuing parking tickets. These tickets resemble the original ones, you can tell if they are bona fide parking tickets by carefully reading the notice at the bottom usually in very very small print if it says

“Parking Charge Notice pay within 14 days for a reduced rate. Non-payment will result in us contacting the D.V.L.A. for your details” then it is issued by a private parking company.

These “private parking tickets” are perfectly legal. They are invoices and the issuing companies hope most people will just pay up and indeed, many people do.  If everybody didn’t pay but insisted on going to court, these companies would go bust overnight.

The charges are enforceable against the registered keeper of the registered keeper doesn’t say who the driver is.  The relevant legislation is the Protection of Freedoms Act.

If you are taken to court (far more likely now because the majority of these are being dealt with on the telephone instead of court appearance) and you don’t attend the hearing then you will automatically lose, get county court judgement against you and also have to pay the parking companies court costs.

It is sometimes possible to get away with paying a lesser amount provided you send the money with an appropriate covering letter.  Expert Answers can assist you with this kind of letter.

The most common defence is that there was nothing of signage for the driver to realise that there was a charge for parking but many of these parking companies will now reply to any correspondence you send, with details of the signage and exactly where it’s located.  If you are going to defend any action they bring on the basis of the lack of signage you will need photographs and locations of all the signs to support your defence.appeal parking tickets