I’ve got a parking ticket but I wasn’t the driver. What now?

Council and TfL: a Penalty Charge Notice

A civil penalty issued under the Traffic Management Act 2004. Not a criminal matter, no points on a licence, no criminal record. It can be issued on the windscreen, handed over, or posted after a camera observation.

Liability sits with the registered keeper. That is not an oversight in the system — it is how the system is built, so that enforcement does not depend on identifying who was behind the wheel.

Private land: a Parking Charge Notice

A private company has no power to fine anybody. What it has is a claim in contract: the argument that by parking you accepted the terms displayed on the signs, and that the charge is what those terms provide for.

Because it is contractual, the driver is the person with the contract. The keeper only comes into it through a separate statutory route, and that route has conditions the operator has to meet.

Why the distinction matters so much here

The question “I wasn’t the driver” gets opposite answers in the two systems. Against a council PCN it is generally not a defence at all. Against a private parking charge it goes to the heart of who can be pursued, and naming the driver has a defined legal effect.

So be certain which document you are holding before doing anything else. A well-argued challenge sent into the wrong system achieves nothing.

Both kinds are usually machine-generated: a number plate read by a camera, then a letter produced from the keeper record at DVLA. Nobody assessed your circumstances before it was sent.

That is where the similarity stops.

Council PCN: the honest answer

You are liable as the registered keeper. Telling the council that a friend, a partner or a family member was driving does not transfer the liability, and it is not a ground the adjudicator can allow. This is the thing most people arrive hoping is untrue, and it is better to hear it plainly than to spend the discount period on an argument that cannot succeed.

What can succeed are the grounds that go to whether the penalty was properly issued at all — the contravention did not occur, the signs or lines were not compliant, the vehicle had been taken without consent, or the vehicle was sold before the date in question.

Escalation exists: an unpaid PCN can lead to a Charge Certificate, which adds 50%, and then to registration as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre. That stage is beyond what this site covers, and it is a reason to deal with the letter early rather than a reason to panic now.

Private charge: what the operator has to prove

Here, being the keeper is not automatically enough. Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 sets out when a keeper can be held liable at all, and it is built around strict timing.

If a Notice to Driver was given at the time — a ticket put on the windscreen — the Notice to Keeper must be given in the period beginning 28 days and ending 56 days after that Notice to Driver. If no Notice to Driver was given, which is the normal position with camera and ANPR sites, the Notice to Keeper must be given within 14 days of the end of the parking period.

The operator also has to have had compliant signage in place, and must not already know who the driver was. Miss any of it and the keeper-liability route is not available, whatever the invoice says.

1. Identify the issuer and the document type before anything else — council or TfL Penalty Charge Notice, or private company Parking Charge Notice.
2. Note every date on it: the alleged contravention, the notice, and any discount deadline. The process is timing-driven throughout.
3. For a council PCN, decide quickly. The 50% discount is usually lost after 14 days, and a challenge submitted inside that window normally preserves it if the challenge is rejected — check the wording on your own notice.
4. For a council PCN, drop the “wasn’t driving” argument and look instead at whether the contravention happened, whether the signs and lines were compliant, and whether the vehicle was yours on that date.
5. For a private charge, check the timing dates against the Schedule 4 windows above. If the Notice to Keeper was late, the keeper-liability route may simply not be open.
6. For a private charge, consider whether to name the driver. If the driver is identified, the operator has to pursue them, and the keeper route falls away.
7. Photograph the location and signage if you can still get there. Signage is central to a private charge and useful for a council one.
8. Respond in writing, within the deadline, keeping a dated copy. Silence loses the discount and, in the council process, moves you to the next stage automatically.

Neither of these should be ignored, but they escalate in different ways and it is worth knowing which one you are dealing with.

A council PCN has a defined statutory path that runs whether you engage or not: Notice to Owner, then a Charge Certificate adding 50%, then registration as a debt. Doing nothing removes your options one deadline at a time. It also costs you the 50% discount, which is the cheapest outcome available.

A private parking charge cannot be enforced by any of that machinery. A private company has to bring a county court claim to enforce it, which is a slower and less certain route for them. That is not the same as saying the charge can be safely ignored — court claims are brought, and a judgment against you is a serious thing.

With a council PCN the clock is the enemy. With a private charge the substance matters more, and the operator’s own compliance with Schedule 4 is a real question.

What is true of both: an unanswered notice is treated as an accepted one, and neither system contains anything that reads your mind.

Council or TfL PCN

The process is fixed and each step has its own deadline. You normally have 28 days to pay, with a 50% discount if you pay within 14 days; for postal and camera PCNs in London the discount period is commonly 21 days.

The route runs: the PCN itself, then an optional informal challenge, then a Notice to Owner, then 28 days to make formal representations. The authority generally responds within 56 days. If it rejects your representations, it issues a Notice of Rejection, and you then have 28 days to appeal to the independent adjudicator.

The adjudicator is the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for England outside London and for Wales, and London Tribunals for London. Both are independent of the council, and appealing to them costs nothing.

Scotland operates a separate system, which could not be verified for this page, so no Scottish body is named here. Start at mygov.scot if your ticket was issued in Scotland.

Private parking charge

Appeals go to POPLA where the operator belongs to the British Parking Association, and to the Independent Appeals Service where it belongs to the International Parking Community. Which one applies depends on the operator’s trade body, and the notice should say.

The strongest points are usually the ones the operator has to get right: whether the Notice to Keeper landed inside the Schedule 4 window, whether the signage was compliant and legible, and whether the operator already knew who the driver was.

You can also name the driver. If the driver is identified, the operator must pursue them, and the keeper-liability route falls away. Whether that is the right thing to do in your household is your call and not something this page can decide.

The caps — and what they are not

A cap of £100, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days, appears on most private parking notices. It comes from the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice, published by the BPA and IPC. That is a trade-body code, not law. It has applied to new sites since 1 October 2024, with existing sites to comply by December 2026.

The statutory Private Parking Code of Practice is a different thing, and its status matters because so many pages get it wrong. It was laid in February 2022, withdrawn in June 2022, and has never come into force. A further government consultation closed on 5 September 2025. As of 31 August 2026 no response has been published and no statutory code is in force.

That means the widely repeated "£50 cap" and the “ban on the £70 debt recovery fee” were part of the withdrawn 2022 draft only. They are not law, and a challenge built on them will not land. Because this could change, treat 31 August 2026 as the date this paragraph was last true and check before relying on it.

My partner was driving. Does that get me out of a council PCN?

Generally not. Liability for a council or TfL Penalty Charge Notice rests with the registered keeper by design, and identifying the driver does not transfer it. The grounds that can succeed are about whether the penalty was properly issued — the contravention did not happen, the signs or lines were non-compliant, the vehicle was taken without consent, or you were not the keeper on that date.

Is it different for a private parking company?

Yes. A private charge is contractual, so the driver is the person with the contract. The keeper can only be pursued through Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and only where the operator met the timing and signage conditions. If you name the driver, the operator must pursue them instead.

How quickly does a private company have to send the Notice to Keeper?

If a ticket was put on the windscreen, the Notice to Keeper must be given between 28 and 56 days after that notice. If there was no windscreen ticket, as at most camera sites, it must be given within 14 days of the end of the parking period. Outside those windows the keeper-liability route is not available.

Is the £100 private parking cap the legal maximum?

No. The £100 figure, reduced to £60 within 14 days, comes from the BPA and IPC Single Code of Practice — a trade-body code that has applied to new sites since 1 October 2024, with existing sites to comply by December 2026. It is not statute.

What happened to the £50 cap I read about?

It was part of the statutory Private Parking Code of Practice laid in February 2022 and withdrawn in June 2022. That code never came into force. A further consultation closed on 5 September 2025, and as of 31 August 2026 no response has been published and no statutory code is in force, so the £50 cap and the ban on the £70 debt recovery fee are not law.

Where do I appeal, and does it cost anything?

For a council PCN outside London, and in Wales, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal; in London, London Tribunals. Both are independent and free. For a private charge it is POPLA if the operator is a BPA member, or the Independent Appeals Service if it is an IPC member. Scotland runs a separate system — start at mygov.scot.