Parking tickets are a major gripe for all motorists, whether they are fair or not.
Sometimes signs are poorly displayed while other times you've only run over by a few minutes and sometimes the ticket goes missing.
Whenever it happens, it's annoying and can be very expensive.
And enforcement companies are ruthless with nearly seven million parking tickets issued by private firms in the past year.
Motoring experts at LeaseVan.co.uk have given nine pieces of advice to help potentially wronged UK drivers appeal unfair private parking tickets.
It comes after a record breaking 6.81million vehicle keeper records were requested by private parking management companies from the DVLA in 2018-19, up 20 percent from 5.65 million in 2017-18.
Landowners are well within their rights to monitor and charge for the service of providing parking space, so motorists who break reasonable rules should pay reasonable additional charges.
But tickets issued in private car parks are actually invoices, not official council parking fines, even if they look very similar, so there’s no reason for drivers to be unnecessarily out of pocket.
It can often be misleading, perhaps deliberately, as both are chequered yellow and can be abbreviated to ‘PCN’, but private Parking Charge Notices are not the same as local authorities’ Penalty Charge Notices.
Potential grounds for appealing against private companies include broken ticket machines, unclear signage, honest human error, unforeseen circumstances such as breakdowns or health issues and excessive charges beyond the losses the landowner could reasonably have incurred.
Tim Alcock from LeaseVan.co.uk said: “The number of private parking tickets issued has risen every year over the past decade, but many of these may have been issued unjustly.
“With each parking charge costing up to £100 each, it’s vital drivers are prepared for to fight their corner if they think the ticket is unfair.
"So we’ve decided to issue some useful guidance that could help motorists if they’re issued with a potentially unfair private parking charge.”
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