Don’t know how to deal with the unfair parking charges? No worries at all, just read our straightforward guide and get your problem solved!
Identify the type of your parking ticket
At every new minute, about twelve parking tickets are issued to the car owners and drivers. If you park your car at the parking lots of official bodies such as police and city councils, or somewhere in a private property, like hospitals, housing estate, retail parks, etc. you may get charged by a parking ticket which might land you in huge trouble, by disturbing your credit scores, if you don’t deal with it on time.
In this respect, the very first thing you need to do is to check which type of parking ticket you’ve got. If the ticket is issued by an official body then we call it
- Expense charge notice or penalty charge notice – issued by a public council
- Fixed penalty notice – issued by police
Such sorts of tickets always contain the name of the issuer on them.
On the other hand, if there’s no name of issuing authority on the ticket, odds are it might be issued by a private company. Mostly, such tickets are labelled as parking charge notices. The thing which you need to remember here is that you are not bound to pay for such parking tickets since the private companies are not authorized to impose any kind of fine.
However, you can’t even ignore such sorts of parking charge notices and have to appeal against them. Otherwise, the private issuers could pursue you to pay a charge, through trials.
Consider the available way-outs
Now, since you’ve identified the type of parking ticket you’ve received, the next task is to decide whether you want to pay for it or submit a parking appeal to get rid of charges completely.
Before taking any action, remember that if you are actually guilty then paying for it as soon as possible is the finest decision you could make. All kinds of council tickets offered a 50% flat discount on the net charges if you clear the payment within two weeks. Similarly, if you pay for the private parking tickets within two weeks, you’ll get a 40% off on the total cost. Also, you can request the operator to extend the two-week limit.
However, if you want to challenge the parking ticket and want to submit an appeal, you have to keep two things in your mind
- The offer of 50% or 40% discount would not be valid for you.
- If you pay for the ticket, you won’t be able to appeal against it.
When should you appeal for a parking ticket?
If one of the following conditions applies to you, you are eligible to appeal against the parking ticket.
- You were not driving the vehicle. Remember, the parking tickets are only charged to drivers, not to the vehicles. So, if one of your friends was driving your car and parked it somewhere mistakenly, you can challenge the penalty ticket. The rule is the same even if your car was stolen.
- Invalidtraffic regulation – if the public council has added a new traffic regulation order without following the proper procedure, you can challenge the parking ticket.
- Faulty signs – If you parked your vehicle in a non-parking area mistakenly due to misleading or faded signs or invisible zigzags, you are eligible to appeal against the ticket.
- Natural calamities – if you park your car in a non-permitted area due to natural calamities like health issues, you can appeal against the ticket. Also, if your car stopped working at that non-parking spot, you can challenge the ticket as well.
How to appeal an official parking ticket?
Now, if you are sure that you’ve charged a parking ticket mistakenly or unfairly, the next step is to appeal against it. To do so, you have to begin with crafting your appeal letter.
However, to get the most out of your appeal, you have to make sure that the letter is created professionally. Also, attach the supporting evidence which could prove helpful to set you free of all the allegations.
Thankfully, the problem of writing the appeal letter professionally has been solved greatly by the parking appeal template. You can choose one of your preferred templates, according to the parking ticket type and issuer authority.
After selecting a template, you just need to add your basic details, like the type of ticket (formal/informal), name of issuing authority, address, and the reason for the parking ticket. Resultantly, you’ll get your well-formulated appeal letter.
To collect the supporting evidence, you can get photographs of misleading, unclear signs or ticket meters. Similarly, you can submit witness statements or evidence of your vehicle breakdown or other natural calamities. Lastly, if your car was stolen, you can attach the crime reference ID as your evidence.
What if the issuer rejects your appeal?
In most cases, if you attach strong evidence and use a premium template, the council accepts your appeal and cancels all the fines imposed on you. Resultantly, you’ve to pay not even a single penny.
On the other side of the barrel, if your issuer rejects your appeal, you’ll receive a notice stating the rejection. The good thing here is, if the issuer rejects your appeal on the behalf of fair reasons and you realize that you were guilty, you can still pay the tickets within the remaining qualifying days and get a discount.
However, if you are completely sure that you were not guilty and the ticket was issued falsely, you still have the option of submitting your appeal in front of an independent adjudicator.
Before taking this option, we’d advise you to consider your case and evidence. Remember, if your appeal gets rejected even by the independent tribunal, you’ll lose the discount, resultantly, you’ll have to pay the full charge of the ticket.
However, if your appeal gets accepted, the tribunal will instruct the issuer to cancel the tickets. Both you and the issuers will be informed by the decision through either phone calls, emails, or official letters which include both the final decision and the ground reasons for either accepting or rejecting the appeal.
