Parking Charge Notice

Can they pursue you if you were not driving?

Only if they follow a specific statutory route. An operator who cannot identify the driver may in defined circumstances pursue the registered keeper instead.

Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 — paragraphs 8 and 9 for the deadlines, paragraph 4 for the wait before recovery

First, the land has to qualify

Schedule 4 applies only where the vehicle was parked on “relevant land” (paragraph 1(1)(a)). If the land is not relevant land, keeper liability is not available at all — however well the operator followed the notice deadlines. Three kinds of land are outside it:

• A highway maintainable at the public expense, within the meaning of section 329(1) of the Highways Act 1980.
• A parking place provided or controlled by a traffic authority — which includes councils, Transport for London and the Secretary of State.
• Any other land where parking is “subject to statutory control”, meaning a statutory provision imposes a liability for parking there.

Station car parks changed on 2025-12-26. Those byelaws no longer make a station car park “subject to statutory control”. Station car parks that were outside Schedule 4 on that ground alone are now relevant land, so keeper liability can apply there. Before 26 December 2025 the operator could only pursue the driver.

The carve-out is narrow. It removes one route out of Schedule 4, not all of them. If the car park is run or controlled by a traffic authority, or parking there is subject to statutory control on some other footing, the exclusion still bites.

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Definition of Relevant Land) (Amendment) Order 2025 (S.I. 2025/1256), article 2

Then four conditions have to be met:

1. The creditor has a right to recover from the driver but does not know the driver's name and current address.
2. Either a notice was given to the driver and then to the keeper, or a notice to keeper alone was given.
3. The creditor applied to the DVLA for the keeper's details within the relevant period and was given them.
4. Any requirements about displaying notices on the land were met when the parking began.

All four, not whichever ones the operator can manage. Miss one and the keeper route is not available at all.

There is a fifth requirement that sits outside that list and is easy to overlook: The vehicle must not have been stolen when the parking began. It is presumed not to have been stolen unless the contrary is proved, so this only helps where a theft can actually be shown.

The deadline is a window, not a cut-off

Where a notice was left on the vehicle, the notice to keeper cannot arrive whenever the operator likes. It has to be given no earlier than day 29 and no later than day 56, counting from the day after the notice to driver was given — a window 28 days wide. That really is how the statute is drafted: one period of 28 days, and then the 28 days after that. A notice to keeper that lands too early is as defective as one that lands too late.

Where no notice was left on the vehicle at all, there is one much shorter deadline instead: the notice to keeper must be given within 14 days, counting from the day after the parking ended.

So check the dates before you check anything else — and check the right date. A notice sent by post counts as given on the second working day after posting, unless it is proved otherwise. Weekends and public holidays do not count, so the postmark is not the date that matters.

Miss the window at either end and keeper liability is not available at all; the operator is left needing to prove who was driving. Even where everything has been served correctly, it cannot begin recovering from you until 28 days have passed from the day the notice to keeper was given.

And there is a ceiling on what the keeper route can produce. What can be recovered from the keeper by this route is capped at the amount the notice to keeper specified as unpaid, less anything paid after that time. The operator cannot let the figure grow between letters and then pursue the keeper for the larger sum.
The cap binds the keeper route only. It does not stop the operator pursuing the driver — if it can identify one — on the contract, and the Act says so expressly while forbidding double recovery.

Scotland is different, and it is not a detail. Schedule 4 extends to England and Wales only. In Scotland there is no keeper liability for private parking charges, so the operator has to establish who was driving — and if it cannot, it has no one to pursue.

Northern Ireland is outside it too. Schedule 4 extends to England and Wales only, so the statutory keeper-liability route is not available in Northern Ireland either. Whether any equivalent applies there is not something we have verified against an official source, so we do not state one.

Why “they lost nothing” does not work

The argument that a parking charge must reflect the operator's actual loss was run to the Supreme Court and lost. In ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 the driver overstayed at a retail park and was charged £85. The Supreme Court held that the charge was enforceable and not an unlawful penalty.

The old question of whether a charge was a genuine pre-estimate of loss was replaced. The question now is whether the charge is out of all proportion to a legitimate interest of the party imposing it. The court accepted that an operator has a legitimate interest beyond its own losses — keeping spaces turning over for shoppers and the retailers who rely on them.

This is why the argument “they lost nothing, so they cannot charge me” does not work. It was tried at the highest level and failed. What remains arguable is whether a contract was formed at all — signage, visibility, legibility, grace periods — and whether the operator has complied with the statutory route for pursuing a keeper. Those arguments win. The pre-estimate of loss argument does not.

Appealing, and why you do not choose the appeal body

Appeal to the operator first. Only if it rejects you does it have to issue a reference number for the appeal body.

You do not choose. Which body hears your appeal depends on which trade association the operator belongs to — so check the ticket and the operator's website before you write anything.

Debt recovery fees

Many operators add a debt recovery fee when a charge goes unpaid. The statutory code that would have banned these fees was withdrawn before it took effect, so there is no statutory cap at present. Whether a particular fee is recoverable is a matter of contract, and it is contested.

We do not publish a figure for these fees. They vary between operators, there is no statutory cap in force, and any number given as a national standard would be invented.

The code of practice that most advice assumes exists

A great deal of advice online states that a statutory code caps private parking charges. It does not, because it never came into force.

As things stand, no statutory code is in force. Private operators are bound only by the voluntary codes of the two trade associations and by ordinary contract law.

Status of the statutory Private Parking Code of Practice: not in force.

Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019