Private parking

Draft. Not counsel-reviewed. ChatLegal is not a solicitor. This is general information about a parking charge from a private company in England and Wales (EW), not legal advice, and not representation. Scotland is a different route. This page does not cover it.

Eval lockedIn the locked evaluation set. Not a counsel-reviewed page.

Plain-English scope

A "Parking Charge Notice" from a private company, for example a retail park, is not the same thing as a council "Penalty Charge Notice". GOV.UK treats private-company tickets separately from council penalties. This page does not say whether a charge is payable.

Check the paper itself, or ask the issuer, for deadlines and for how to pay or challenge. This page gives no discount figure and no number of days. Those vary by notice. [verify]

How GOV.UK describes a challenge

GOV.UK says: check who issued the ticket and contact them to find out how to challenge it. If the challenge is rejected, there is an independent appeals service. GOV.UK names POPLA where the operator is a British Parking Association member, and IAS where the operator is an International Parking Community member. Keep to the deadlines printed on the notice.

POPLA and IAS are named here only because GOV.UK names them. Their own sites are not linked. Their content is not quoted.

Keeper and driver

A notice addressed to the registered keeper is not, by itself, a decision that the keeper must pay. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, is the England and Wales statute on recovery of unpaid parking charges from the keeper rather than the driver. Whether its conditions are met depends on what the notice says and when it arrived. This page cannot decide that. Paragraph numbers are not given. [verify]

Code of practice — open counsel point

[verify] Private Parking Code of Practice. GOV.UK, updated 20 October 2026, shows a draft laid in Parliament. It is not described there as already issued or in force. GOV.UK says it comes into force 21 days after it is issued. It may not apply to a ticket already sent. Do not treat the code as in force on this page. The curated-laws seed marks the same row as a draft. The statutory basis is [verify].

Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (England and Wales). Keeper liability. Paragraph pinpoints [verify]. Cite it only when keeper liability is actually in play.
Private Parking Code of Practice (England, Scotland, and Wales on the curated-laws row). Draft. Not in force on the evidence used here. Statutory basis [verify].

Official guidance

Accessed 3 November 2026.

The GOV.UK parking page was shown as last updated January 2025 when the gold note was written. Re-check it if the code's status changes.

What ChatLegal will and will not do

ChatLegal can distinguish a private charge from a council penalty and can point at the challenge path GOV.UK describes. It will not say an appeal will win, or that a charge cannot be enforced. It will not write an appeal, a witness statement, or a defence. It will not say to ignore a notice, a letter before claim, or court papers.

A council penalty is a different page, and that page is still a stub. Court deadlines: respond to a court claim for money. Debt guidance, as a link only: MoneyHelper. Link list: Referrals.

Protocol and evaluation

Last reviewed

3 November 2026. Role: Product. Draft. Not a counsel-reviewed page. The parking code's commencement blocks any "reviewed" claim.

© Crown and database right. Derived from content available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.