Parking ticket questions, answered

Council and TfL Penalty Charge Notices, including bus lane, red route, congestion charge, ULEZ and the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnel charges. Private Parking Charge Notices from operators like ParkingEye, APCOA and Euro Car Parks, covering retail parks, supermarkets, hospitals and private land. Anywhere in the UK, not just London.

Usually 28 days from the date on the notice. Don't sit on it. Miss the deadline and you can lose the right to challenge at all, and the amount you owe goes up. If you're near the end of the window, get something in now rather than waiting until you've gathered every last piece of evidence.

The full journey of a ticket, step by step→ · What happens if you miss it: Charge Certificates explained→

Normally no, on a council or TfL ticket. Government guidance is that if you challenge within the first 14 days and they turn you down, they re-open the discounted rate for another 14 days from the date of their decision. So challenging early usually costs you nothing even if it doesn't work. Leave it past day 14 and the full amount is due either way. Private companies often do something similar but it varies, so check the wording on your own notice.

If the ticket is fair, probably. But paying is treated as admitting you were in the wrong, and once you've paid you can't appeal. So if something about it feels off, challenge it first. Because of the discount rule above, you usually aren't risking anything by trying.

What happens if you ignore a parking ticket→

Both use those initials, which is genuinely confusing. A Penalty Charge Notice comes from a council or TfL and is enforceable by law. A Parking Charge Notice comes from a private company on private land, like a retail park or supermarket, and is a contract claim rather than a fine. Look for a council logo and a mention of the Traffic Management Act 2004, or a company name like ParkingEye or Euro Car Parks. It matters, because the two go to completely different appeal bodies and need different arguments.

Council vs private tickets, in full→

No, and this is where a lot of people give up too early. There's a second stage, and it's independent of whoever issued the ticket. Council and TfL tickets go to the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, or London Tribunals if it's a London borough. Private tickets go to POPLA or the Independent Appeals Service depending on which trade body the operator belongs to. Both are free to use.

How the appeals process actually works→

Depends entirely on your circumstances, and anyone giving you a success percentage before they've seen your ticket is making it up. What we can say is which situations tend to hold up: signs that were missing, faded, or hidden; a payment you made that didn't register; a permit you actually held; a genuine emergency. If one of those is you, it's worth challenging.

No. The whole system is built for ordinary drivers to use themselves, and the appeal bodies are free. What actually makes a difference is a letter that argues the right grounds and cites the correct law for the type of ticket you've got. That's the bit most people find hard, and that's what we do.

Real law. We work from a curated reference of actual legislation, the official Codes of Practice private operators are bound by, and genuine case law, each one checked directly against the original source rather than pulled from memory. Your letter draws on whichever of those are actually relevant to your specific grounds and issuer, so you're not getting recycled boilerplate: you're getting the real legal basis for your case, argued properly.

See the terms themselves explained: Jargon Buster→

Whatever backs up your specific reason. Photos of the signs and road markings, payment confirmations or app screenshots, your permit, breakdown or recovery paperwork, and anything they've already sent you. You can appeal without evidence, but it's a much stronger letter with it.

£15 for a first appeal, £29 if you've already been rejected once and need to escalate formally, £50 for a tribunal submission. You get a finished letter written around your circumstances, ready to send. At the first stage you also get a condensed version for online submission, in case the form you're using has a length limit. Revisions are included, more of them at the higher stages.

It's written as soon as your payment goes through and lands in your inbox, with a link to read it and ask for changes if anything isn't right.

It's rare, but if it happens your payment is completely safe, you're never charged for a letter you didn't receive. Our system automatically flags it to us the moment it happens, so we're already looking into it before you'd even notice. You'll get a follow-up email from us once it's sorted, usually within the same day. If you'd rather not wait, you can always reply or email us and we'll check on it straight away.

No. There's no signup, no password, no subscription. You answer the questions, pay once, and your letter is emailed to you with a private link to come back to it.

Your details and any photos you upload are stored securely and used only to write your letter and deal with revisions. We don't sell your data or use it for advertising. Submissions are deleted after 12 months, and you can ask us to remove yours sooner. The full detail is in our privacy policy.