How to appeal a private parking charge notice

How private parking charges work

Most operators use automatic number-plate recognition cameras at the entrance and exit, and post a Notice to Keeper to the registered keeper's address from the DVLA. Some still put a notice on the windscreen and follow it up by post. The charge is typically £100, reduced to £60 if you pay within 14 days, under the industry code of practice.

Operators can only hold the registered keeper liable, rather than the driver, if they follow Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 exactly. That is where many charges fall apart:

• For a camera-only charge, the Notice to Keeper must be delivered within 14 days of the parking event.
• For a windscreen ticket, the follow-up Notice to Keeper must arrive no earlier than 28 days and no later than 56 days after the ticket.
• The notice must contain specific wording about the keeper's liability, the amount, and how to appeal. Missing wording breaks keeper liability.

If the operator gets any of this wrong it can only pursue the driver, and it has no way of knowing who was driving unless you tell it. You are never obliged to name the driver.

The appeal route

1. Appeal to the operator within 28 days. Every notice must tell you how. Use the operator's online form or write to the address on the notice, quote the reference and registration, and set out your grounds with evidence. Do not identify the driver unless you want to.
2. Independent appeal. If the operator rejects you, it must tell you which independent body to go to. Members of the British Parking Association use POPLA, and you get a ten-digit code on the rejection letter that is valid for 28 days. Members of the International Parking Community use the IAS. Both are free to the motorist.
3. After that, only a court can make you pay. If you lose at POPLA or the IAS, or ignore the charge, the operator may pass it to a debt recovery firm and may eventually issue a county court claim. The letters in between have no legal force on their own, but a claim form does: never ignore one, because a default judgment becomes a County Court Judgment on your credit file.

British Parking Association members must re-offer the discounted rate for 14 days if they reject your first appeal. International Parking Community members generally do not, so with an IPC operator the decision to appeal is a decision to give up the discount.

Grounds that beat private parking charges

• The Notice to Keeper was late or defective. Check the dates on the notice against the parking event. This is the most common technical win.
• Signage was inadequate. The terms have to be prominent, legible and clear at the entrance and around the site. Small print on a sign at the far end of a car park is not a contract you agreed to. Photograph the signs as you saw them, in the light you saw them in.
• Grace periods. The sector code of practice requires a minimum 10-minute grace period after the paid or free period ends, and a consideration period of at least 5 minutes on arrival (10 minutes in car parks with more than 500 spaces) to read the signs and decide whether to stay.
• Camera errors. Cameras miss a plate at exit and pair your morning arrival with your evening departure ("double dipping"), or misread a letter. Bank statements, receipts and shop loyalty records showing two separate visits are strong evidence.
• You were a genuine customer who paid, or a patient at a hospital, or a resident with a permit. Many landowners instruct operators to cancel these, and pointing this out to the retailer or hospital directly often works faster than the appeal.
• The pay machine or app failed. Evidence of a failed transaction, an error message or an outage is a recognised ground.
• The amount claimed is inflated. The sector code caps the charge at £100. It also lets an operator add up to £70 once a charge goes to debt recovery, but that fee is contested: the government consulted in 2025 on whether to keep, change or ban it, so it is worth challenging.

Should you just pay it?

If you clearly overstayed at a well-signed site and the operator has done everything right, the discounted rate is often the pragmatic choice. But if any of the points above apply, an appeal is worth making, and it costs nothing to check. AppealGo reads the notice, checks the dates and the operator's process, and drafts the appeal in your name.