Got a private parking charge?
Check it free. Fight it properly.

No. A private parking company cannot fine you. A "parking charge notice" is a demand for money under a contract the company says you made by parking on its signs’ terms. It can only be enforced by suing you in the county court, where the company has to prove the contract, the breach and the amount. That is why a council penalty charge notice, which is a statutory penalty, is a different process and is not covered here.

No. A registered keeper does not have to name the driver. The company can only pursue the keeper under Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 if every condition in it is met, including the time limits for the notice to keeper. Be aware the industry Code says a keeper’s refusal to name the driver may be used as evidence, and a court can draw its own conclusions from the evidence, so never say anything untrue. The checker asks whether you are answering as keeper or driver and applies the right rules.

The date rules for the notice to keeper (14 days for a camera notice, day 29–56 after a windscreen ticket, both counted from the presumed delivery date), whether the land is "relevant land" (airport byelaws, and station car parks before 26 December 2025), whether more is being claimed from a keeper than the notice stated, whether the charge is above the industry Code’s £100 cap, whether an overstay of ten minutes or less sits inside the Code’s grace period, and the facts you give about signage, payment and the machine. It also works out your next deadline for each stage, including acknowledging and defending a court claim.

A case workspace for one parking charge, built from your checker answers: the defence points that apply with their sources, your deadlines, and drafts of the documents for your stage — an appeal to the operator, a POPLA or IAS appeal, a reply to a Letter of Claim using the Debt Claims Pre-Action Protocol reply form, a subject access request to the operator, a keeper statement, a short defence sized for the online response box and a full N9B-style defence — plus a case chat that has read your answers. You review, sign, send and file everything yourself.

No. CourtPilot is not a law firm and does not act for you. The pack drafts the documents in your name; you check them, send them to the operator or its solicitors, and file your acknowledgment and defence with the court yourself. The workspace tells you where each one goes and by when.

If no date of service is printed on the form, a claim issued online counts as served on the fifth day after the issue date (Practice Direction 7E, paragraph 5.7). You then have 14 days from service to acknowledge the claim and, if you acknowledge, 28 days from service to file a defence (CPR Parts 10 and 15). A deadline that falls on a day the court office is closed moves to the next open day. Miss both and the company can ask for judgment in default, which you would then have to apply to set aside under CPR Part 13.

The industry’s Single Code of Practice lets an operator add up to £70 once a charge is overdue (clause 9). That is self-regulation, not law, and the fee is challengeable rather than automatically disallowed. If you are being pursued as keeper, the Act caps what can be recovered from you at the amount stated in the notice to keeper (Schedule 4, paragraph 4(5)). In court the pack pleads the added sum as not a term on the signs and, in substance, costs of the kind CPR 27.14 limits on the small claims track. The pack does not cite unreported county court decisions as if they were binding.

No. It applies published rules — the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Civil Procedure Rules, the Debt Claims Pre-Action Protocol and the industry Code — to the dates and facts you enter, and it says so on every point. It cannot see your letters or the signs. Check the dates against your paperwork, and where the amount or the consequences matter to you, consult a solicitor.

No. The keeper-liability rules in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 apply in England and Wales only, and the court deadlines are those of the County Court of England and Wales. CourtPilot covers England and Wales.