Unfair parking ticket, does it have grounds for appeal?

sheridanhouser

I received a parking ticket a few days ago when my daughter gave me a call to ask if I could pick her up as she had just bought a new coffee table and (obviously) could not manage a 20 minute walk home with it. The shop she bought it from has no specific parking and all the surrounding roads were busy (including double yellows). However across the road is a co-op car park (managed by smart parking), there was no one around (official) and as my daughter had already bought it and was waiting for me, I parked in a space and literally went across the road to help her carry the table out. We were no longer than 5 minutes and on our return we were being issued a ticket. When we got to the ticket man he hadn't even printed/issued the ticket and although we had clearly returned to leave with the car he continued to fill in the details and print the ticket (despite claims he had already printed it, it was quite clear he hadn't when he printed it out in front of us). The ticket was for £45 within the first 14 days and £90 thereafter. Firstly I cannot even afford this ticket and secondly I find this an unfair situation but wasn't sure whether it was good enough grounds to appeal on, if anyone could suggest whether it would be a good idea to appeal please respond!!

bod1467

Your circumstances are irrelevant. All you've received is an invoice, not a fine.

Please read the NEWBIES sticky thread.

ColliesCarer

Firstly thank you for now creating your own thread

As long as you live in England or Wales and this happened in either of those countries too - you should appeal it.

There are always grounds to appeal based on the legal arguments as to why these charges are unenforceable - not the circumstances on the day.

Read the NEWBIES sticky thread (1st thread on main forum page) for advise and appeal templates.

look out for the advice about what to do when issued with a windscreen ticket (i.e. a notice to driver)

EDIT: Apologies for xover bod - I really must learn to type faster and check no responses have come in while I slowly peck at the keyboard

Coupon-mad

As ever, this is covered in the sticky thread at the top of this parking forum - which is why I wrote it. Sadly, last year it got silly as we could not keep up with all the ''help I have got a private parking ticket, what do I do?'' threads so I wrote a sticky thread BEGGING newbies to 'read these FAQS first'.

Smart almost always just cancel when they get sent the appeal template from the NEWBIES thread, and if not then the sticky tells you how to win at POPLA and explains what that is...

sheridanhouser

Thanks for your help/advice!! really useful, I had looked around other faq's but was not sure if I had any grounds at all but thanks so much :beer:

Louise1968

Sorry but still a bit confused. The ticket was from Smart Parking. Do I wait until I get a letter before appealing or should I send my appeal now.

Dee140157

WAit for the notice to keeper and then appeal as the registered keeper making sure everything is in the third person eg the driver not I. Good reasons for this but don't worry why at this stage.

Louise1968

Thank you for the reply