Do I Have to Pay a Parking Charge Notice?

Have you received a private parking fine, and are you wondering if you should pay or appeal?

You’ve come to the right place. Every month, more than 130,000 people visit our website for advice on fines and parking tickets.

In this article, we’ll provide simple and clear information on:

Whether you need to pay your Parking Charge Notice.
How to appeal a Parking Charge Notice.
What happens if your appeal is rejected.
How a Parking Charge Notice might affect your credit score.

The DVLA report that over 11 million parking tickets were issued last year, which is up by 29% year on year!¹. So, if you’ve got one, you’re definitely not alone.

Don’t worry; we have plenty of helpful advice and examples to help you deal with your PCN.

Not sure what to write in your parking appeal?

You don’t need to start with a blank page.

We’ve created a free parking ticket appeal letter template that gives you a clear structure to follow.

Get my free appeal template

Free editable parking appeal letter template from MoneyNerd.

Do you have to pay a PCN?

You aren’t legally required to pay a Parking Charge Notice until a court has ordered you to do so.

However, you may end up having to pay your Parking Charge Notice if you’re taken to court.

You can still pay your parking ticket if you would prefer to avoid further action being taken against you.

» TAKE ACTION NOW: Get legal support from JustAnswer

Appeal Process Steps

POPLA is working hard to address issues that cause unfair parking fees, especially those related to technology and third-party ticket issuers.²

However, if you believe the parking ticket has been wrongfully served, you can make an appeal.

Here’s a quick table that will guide you through the process. If you want to learn more about the steps involved, don’t forget to read our complete guide.

Process:	Steps you should take:
When you receive the ticket…	You should gather as much evidence as you can to support your appeal claim and prove that the ticket was unfairly issued.
If you were given the ticket in person/attached to your car…	You must make an informal appeal (sent to the local authority/council that issued the PCN) within 14 days. This should be a letter with the evidence proving why the ticket was incorrectly given.
If it was posted to you…	You will be given 21 days to submit an informal appeal (from the day you received the letter). Your informal appeal should be a letter with the evidence proving why the ticket was incorrectly given.
If the informal appeal is rejected…	You will receive a Notice to Owner and will have 28 days to respond to this with a formal appeal. You can conduct the formal appeal online or via paper form. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal can send you one of these forms.
If the formal appeal is rejected…	You will receive a Notice of Rejection. From here, you are free to challenge the council’s verdict at an independent tribunal.
If the independent tribunal disagrees with your appeal…	You should pay the ticket within 28 days of the tribunal rejecting your appeal. If you don’t, the fine will be increased by 50%. If you don’t have the money to pay the fine, you should contact Citizens Advice or another debt charity.

Should You Ignore It?

In my experience, it’s an entirely personal decision whether to pay or ignore a Parking Charge Notice.

But ignoring it could lead to court action and the legal responsibility to pay.

The risks of ignoring a Parking Charge Notice include the threat of court action, which is usually enough to make motorists want to pay.

If you’re asking, ‘What happens if you can’t pay parking garage fine’, the answer is you should contact the issuer as soon as possible.

They may offer you a way to pay that won’t put you under too much stress.

What’s Included in the Free Appeal Template

A clear structure

The template gives you a simple framework for putting your parking appeal together, so you don’t have to work out what to write from scratch.

What you’ll add

Your parking charge details
Why you’re appealing
Any relevant evidence
What you want the parking company to do

Easy to adapt

Just replace the sections in [square brackets] with the details of your own situation and edit the wording where needed.

You’ll get the template by email so you can save it, edit it and use it when you’re ready.

Get my free appeal template

Free parking appeal letter template from MoneyNerd.

What happens when you don’t pay a PCN?

What happens if you don’t pay a parking garage ticket can differ between companies.

The business could:

Send lots of reminders and payment requests
Threaten legal action against you
Ask a debt collection agency to chase you for payment

There’s also a slim chance that the company will stop chasing you for payment if you haven’t been responding. At this stage, they cannot come to your home or (threaten to) repossess your valuables to clear the debt.

But they could take the matter further, and the consequences of unpaid parking fines can be far-reaching.

See the message posted by one motorist seeking advice on how to deal with a Parking Charge Notice.

Source: Moneysavingexpert

Is a Parking Charge Notice enforceable?

A Parking Charge Notice isn’t initially enforceable but it can become legally enforceable depending on the course of action taken by the company.

Car park management companies should follow private UK parking regulations which are set in a Code of Practice.

These fines are not real fines and are comparable to an invoice sent from a business to a client.

But that doesn’t mean the private company won’t refer to them as fines and make threats until you pay.

Private parking fine grace period

We were recently featured in The Sun to help educate people about the 10-minute grace period. This means you can’t be fined if you overstayed by 10 minutes or less.³

So if you didn’t receive a grace period and got fined, you could use this as an excuse to have the private parking fine written off.