Notice to Keeper: Did It Arrive in Time? (PoFA 2012 Time Limits)

A private parking charge is a contract claim against the driver. The registered keeper is not the driver by default and is not liable in contract simply for owning the car. Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 gives an operator a separate right to recover the charge from the keeper, but only if every condition in the Schedule is met (paragraph 4). One of those conditions is that a notice to keeper was given within a fixed time window. If it was not, paragraph 6 is not satisfied and the operator has no right under the Act to recover the charge from the keeper at all. It would have to prove who was driving instead, and a keeper does not have to say.

This is why the first thing to check on any private parking letter is the arithmetic, before the signs, the amount or anything else.

Camera (ANPR) notice, no windscreen ticket — paragraph 9. The notice to keeper must be delivered within the period of 14 days beginning with the day after the period of parking ended (para 9(5)). Parked on 2 March: the last permitted delivery day is 16 March.

Windscreen ticket first, then a notice to keeper — paragraph 8. The operator must wait. The notice to keeper must be delivered in the period of 28 days following the period of 28 days that begins with the day after the notice to driver was given (para 8(5)). Ticket on 1 March: delivery must fall between 30 March (day 29) and 26 April (day 56). A notice delivered before day 29 is too early and also fails.

Presumed delivery — paragraphs 8(6) and 9(6). A notice sent by post is presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered on the second working day after the day it was posted. Compare the presumed delivery date, not the date printed on the notice, with the window.

Keeper liability only exists on "relevant land" (paragraph 3). Land where parking is already controlled by statute is excluded, which is why airport car parks covered by airport byelaws are outside the Act. Station car parks were outside it too, because railway byelaws applied, until SI 2025/1256 came into force on 26 December 2025 and brought them in. For station parking before that date the keeper cannot be pursued under the Act; on or after it, the keeper can be. The Regulations have no transitional provision, so where the parking was before 26 December 2025 but the notice to keeper came after it, the point is arguable rather than certain.

Even where every condition is met, paragraph 4(5) limits what can be recovered from the keeper to the amount specified in the notice to keeper (less anything already paid). Added "debt recovery" or "administration" sums cannot be recovered from the keeper under the Act. If the amount now demanded is higher than the notice, that difference is challengeable whatever else is true. See the guide on added fees.

Appeal to the operator in writing, as the keeper, quoting the dates and the paragraph, and state that the conditions of Schedule 4 are not met so there is no keeper liability. You do not have to say who was driving. If the operator rejects the appeal, appeal free to POPLA (for British Parking Association members) or the IAS (for International Parking Community members); the rejection letter names which. If the operator issues a county court claim anyway, the same dates go into the defence, with the paragraph numbers. Keep every letter and envelope.

The industry Code says a keeper’s failure to name the driver may be used as evidence they were the driver unless they can show otherwise. That is the Code, not the law, but it is a reason never to say anything untrue about who was driving.