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What is a Charge Certificate, and what do I do now?

This applies to council and TfL Penalty Charge Notices only. Private parking companies don’t issue Charge Certificates, they follow a different, contractual process. This guide covers England specifically; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use a broadly similar structure but we haven’t independently verified their exact figures, so we’re not stating them here as fact.

What a Charge Certificate actually means

A council or TfL issues a Charge Certificate when a Penalty Charge Notice has gone through the Notice to Owner stage without being resolved. It increases the amount you owe by 50%. It's issued after any of these:

• No representations were made within 28 days of the Notice to Owner
• No appeal was filed within 28 days of a Notice of Rejection
• An appeal was refused and not paid within 28 days
• An appeal was withdrawn and not paid within 14 days

What's left once you've got one

Here's the honest part: a Charge Certificate closes off the general right to argue your case. You can no longer say "the signage was unclear" or "I had a valid permit" at this stage, that window's passed. What's left is much narrower, and it only applies from the next stage onward (see below): you can challenge only if you never actually received the original notice, never received the rejection of your representations, made a valid appeal and never got a response, or you'd already paid.

If none of those apply to you and the Charge Certificate itself is accurate, the realistic options are paying it or waiting to see if the council exercises discretion, not a fresh appeal on the original facts.

If it's unpaid 14 days later: Order for Recovery

If the Charge Certificate is still unpaid after 14 days, the council can register it as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC), a specialist county court in Northampton that handles unpaid parking penalties nationally. You'll then get a form called an Order for Recovery, and this is where the narrow grounds above actually apply.

Witness Statement or Statutory Declaration

You have 21 days from the date on the Order for Recovery to either pay, or file a sworn declaration on one of the narrow grounds above. Depending on which authority issued your PCN, this is called either a Witness Statement (form TE9, or TE7 if you're filing late) or a Statutory Declaration (form PE3, or PE2 if you're filing late). Both serve the same purpose: which name applies depends on your specific paperwork, not personal choice. Check the form name printed on what you actually received, or call the Traffic Enforcement Centre directly on 0300 123 1059 and they'll confirm which one applies to your case.

Both must be sworn in front of a Commissioner for Oaths, a Justice of the Peace, or a county court officer before being sent to the Traffic Enforcement Centre, not back to the council. It's a criminal offence to knowingly file a false one, so only use this route if one of the grounds actually applies to you.

Still unpaid after that

If nothing's filed and nothing's paid, the county court can issue a Warrant of Execution, which is what allows enforcement agents (bailiffs) to act. This is the end of the road, worth acting well before it gets here.