Expert reveals how to get out of a parking ticket

Private parking companies handed drivers a record 14.4 million tickets last year – but what options do you have if you’re issued one?

The companies that manage and own car parks across the UK issued around 41,000 fines each day last year, according to figures from the RAC.

Drivers have accused some of the fines of being unfair, while others have claimed the machines have been faulty.

The most morbid case was for Maurizio Capoccia, from Enfield, London, who received a £100 from Euro Car Parks, saying he had parked at a Sainsbury’s.

However, Maurizio told Metro he was at a funeral on the other side of town, and he was eventually able to prove it with CCTV from the church.

Now a retired judge has revealed the best defences to challenge a parking fine if drivers have ended up in court.

Judge Stephen Gold told This Is Money: ‘You can challenge a ticket that has been wrongly issued, and the challenge could take you to the county court, where the park operator would have to sue you for non-payment to have any hope of getting you to pay up. That would be their only option.

‘When sitting as a judge, it fell to me to try a number of these cases. Coming up is a selection of some of the best defences that have succeeded in the county court.’

The parking restrictions were not indicated clearly

This might involve you proving that there were no notices of the parking conditions, for example, the signs were too small or hidden.

Prove that you did not breach any conditions

This could work if you can show that what the parking ticket says you did wrong is not included in the parking condition signs.

Prove that extra charges are not allowed

Some parking firms could try to charge admin costs, often called the cost of recovery. But if this is not mentioned in the signs or how much it will be exactly, they cannot collect it.

Prove that the ticket timeframe has been exceeded

When the ticket was attached to the car or given to the driver, the parking firm has 56 days to request the driver’s details from the registered keeper if the fine has not been paid within 28 days.

When the car has been caught by an ANPR camera, the parking firm can go to the DVLA immediately to get the vehicle owner’s details. It then has 14 days from the day of the photo to send a notice to the registered keeper (owner) for payment, or to identify the driver if they are not the keeper.

Prove that the car park operator agreement isn’t in place

It is common for a private parking company to manage the parking space for another business like a supermarket.

This means they will have an agreement for the car parking service, and the agreement can sometimes be for a fixed time only.

This period might have expired and not have been extended, and there have been cases of written agreements that have not been extended verbally, Mr Gold said.

So how can you find this out if you suspect this could be the case?

The best way is to ask the parking operator to prove their authority if they didn’t include a copy of the agreement in their evidence in court.

The ticket is too high

In some rare cases, an operator might be asking for a significant amount of money.

Many parking tickets are usually around £100, so anything in this range is likely not to be considered too high, so the charge will have to be clearly extortionate or extravagant.

Not being able to leave the car park in time

Usually, the signs will prohibit you from staying in the car park beyond a specific time limit.

But your exit might have been blocked by congestion, which forced you to overstay.

There was no way to pay for parking

Mr Gold said that in one case, a woman was unable to pay with an app or a credit card due to a glitch, but she kept trying. When she got through eventually, she paid for the entire time.

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However, the provider said she could not backpay for the time retrospectively, and she was issued a ticket.

But the signs did not say she should park somewhere else in this situation.

The tech glitch defence

For this one to work, you’ll need to show that the technology used to track the length of your visit was inaccurate or unreliable.

Ask the parking firm when they last checked the equipment, what was the status of that check and how many other complaints have they received before and after your visit.

Faulty parking machines catching out drivers

Other drivers have come forward claiming a faulty machine has landed them with a ticket.

One of them is Matt Chambers, who received a £100 Parking Charge Notice (PCN) after leaving his car at the Excel Parking site in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, in February.

The 35-year-old business owner claimed the system had ‘only registered the letter B for my number plate,’ but he entered it correctly.

‘That’s not right. I’m adamant I put the whole number plate in because I’ve used that car park several times before, and it’s the exact same process every time.

‘I know how to use the machine.’

Those who have ever tried to challenge a parking ticket know it can be time-consuming.

While Matt continues to challenge his fine, he admitted it sometimes ‘feels easier to pay just to make them go away.’

Maurizio remained adamant and refused to pay his fine ‘because once you pay, they close the case,’ he told Metro previously.

Retired chef Lee Rogers says he received a fine from Euro Car Parks in August last year after the ticket he had bought only showed one digit of his number plate.

The 67-year-old insists: ‘I did not stand there and key in just the first digit.

‘Hundreds of others have had the same problem.’

He wasn’t afraid to go to court over the fine as ‘they know I’ve paid,’ he said.

Campaigners believe ‘thousands’ of drivers could be affected by faulty machines.

Campaigner Lynda Eagan, who helps drivers with private parking tickets, said most faulty machines involve ‘sticky keys’ as buttons pressed are not recorded correctly or devices which ask drivers to pay before full registration has been entered.

The latter machines are ‘set up to trap people,’ she claimed, as they accept payment even if only the first letter of a registration is entered.

A spokesperson for trade body the British Parking Association anyone who believes they have received a parking ticket issued in error should contact the parking operator and provide ‘all the information that would be relevant for an appeal.’

This article was first published on April 22.

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