Parking Charge Court Claim: Deadlines and Your Defence

The Ministry of Justice’s Civil Justice Statistics for April to June 2026 record 571,250 county court claims, the highest quarterly figure since 2009, and attribute the rise to claims to recover money for parking on private land. The same statistics record that 94% of money-claim judgments are default judgments, entered because the defendant did not respond. The MoJ does not publish a parking-only split, so no one can tell you what proportion of parking claims are defended; what the figures do show is that the usual outcome of doing nothing is a county court judgment against you, with the consequences for credit that brings. Acknowledging and defending costs nothing.

Service. A printed date of service on the form wins. Otherwise, for a claim issued online, the fifth day after issue, business day or not (PD 7E para 5.7). Issued on a Monday, served the following Saturday.

Acknowledgment of service. 14 days after service (CPR 10.3).

Defence. 14 days after service if you did not acknowledge; 28 days after service if you did (CPR 15.4).

Closed days. Where a period ends on a day the court office is closed, the act is in time if done on the next day it is open (CPR 2.8(5)).

Missed both? The claimant can request judgment in default. The court must set it aside if the claim was not properly served or judgment was entered too early, and may set it aside if you have a real prospect of defending or there is some other good reason, taking into account how promptly you applied (CPR Part 13). Apply the day you find out.

If you are the keeper. State that you are the registered keeper, that the claimant has not identified the driver and that it is not admitted that you were the driver. Put the claimant to proof of every condition in Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Plead the notice-to-keeper timing point with the dates and the paragraph (8(5) or 9(5)), the presumed delivery date (8(6) or 9(6)), and relevant land if the site was an airport or a pre-26 December 2025 station car park (para 3; SI 2025/1256). Plead the cap in paragraph 4(5) against anything above the notice.

Everyone. Deny that a contract was formed on the terms alleged if the signs were inadequate, and put the claimant to proof of the signs, their wording, positions and lighting on the date (ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 shows why signage is the real question). Plead payment or a valid permit if you had one. Plead the grace period (Code clause 5.2 and Annex B) for an overstay of ten minutes or less, and the £100 cap (clause 8.2.1), as Code requirements the claimant is bound to follow as a trade association member. Deny any added sum as not a term of the contract and, in substance, costs of the kind limited by CPR 27.14, and put the claimant to proof of its contractual basis. Put the claimant to proof of its written authority from the landowner (Code clause 14.1).

Inadequate particulars. Many bulk parking claims say only "breach of the terms on the signs". CPR 16.4(1)(a) requires a concise statement of the facts relied on, and PD 16 para 7.5 requires a claim on a contract made by conduct to say what the conduct was, and by whom, when and where. If the particulars do not say which term was broken or how, say so, reserve the right to amend once proper particulars are served, and invite the court to consider striking the claim out under CPR 3.4(2). Unreported county court decisions on this point exist but bind no other court, so plead the rules, not the cases.

HMCTS publishes no official limit for the defence box on Money Claim Online; its user guide gives a figure only for the claimant’s particulars (1,080 characters). Forum reports of the defence limit vary, so the safe approach is a short defence of no more than 1,080 characters using plain characters only, filed online to stop the clock, and the full numbered defence filed the same day by email to ClaimResponses.CNBC@justice.gov.uk for a Civil National Business Centre claim (the CNBC’s published address for defences and N9B), with the claim number in the subject line. Check the current limit in the live service before you rely on it.

Defended small claims are automatically referred to the free HMCTS Small Claims Mediation Service, a telephone appointment with a mediator, before any hearing (Practice Direction 51ZE, which currently runs to 6 April 2027). You do not have to settle, but you must take part. If the case is allocated to the small claims track and goes to a hearing, your exposure if you lose is normally the claim plus the fixed costs allowed by CPR 27.14, not the operator’s legal bills, unless the court finds you behaved unreasonably. Operators sometimes discontinue shortly before a hearing; that usually ends the matter without a costs order either way. Keep your file until the claim is discontinued, dismissed or decided.