Parking fine in Sardinia

Nicodemuslucy

Hello, this is my first thread - hopefully we can get some advice!
We were on holiday in Sardinia and parked at the side of a road in a sort of lay by section near a small port that already had 4/5 cars parked there. The parked cars didn't obstruct the main through road by the port but to check we could park there we walked up and down to check for any parking signs or on road markings -but there were none and we took several photographs of where we had parked just in case. On our return - all the cars had a ticket about being parked in a restricted area, but there were no signs to inform us of this restriction. When we returned our car at the airport, we went to the desk to ask about the fine and if/how we could appeal the charge, using our photographs as evidence, but our car hire kiosk was closed and the lady in the next car hire kiosk tried to help but couldn't find anyone from Hertz to help us so we had to fly home without sorting this out. We expected to hear something before Christmas but heard nothing. The holiday was in early September and now in February nearly 6 months later we have received notification from the car hire company to expect a letter detailing a fine to be paid. Is this allowed after such a long delay and if it is - will our photographs mean we can appeal the fine?
Any advice appreciated!

NoodleDoodleMan

How much is the fine ?

Six months is not such a particularly long delay in this bureaucratic scenario.

pogofish

Until you can actually tell us just who is demanding the money, there isn’t much we can do to help. Is it an official municipality demand, or from their courts/lawyers, or is it from some shonky “international debt collector” outfit? This would have considerable impact on what you need to do next.

Also, you need to be checking the small print of your car hire T&Cs to see exactly what they do with and charge extra for tickets/penalties - ie, if they will transfer it to you so you can appeal/challenge or otherwise deal with a debt collector? Despite the scary sounding letters, many EU municipalities actually punt-off minor traffic related tickets to private debt collectors at the earliest opportunity for a pittance because they have no interest in pursuing them by legal means because of the extra cost/difficulty of international claims, esp where the ticket is very low in the legal food-chain. The relatively brief period of six months does make me wonder if this is what’s happened here.

Nicodemuslucy

Thank you both for responding - Hertz sent us an email informing us there was a fine but saying we need to wait for the details from Sardinia so we don't know exactly who is asking for the money or how much yet.