Free Traffic Legal Advice

Before we can deal properly with the parking charge issued to your guest, we must first establish your legal position as a tenant. In residential parking cases, everything turns on what your Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST) does and does not say. The parking company’s signs are secondary and cannot override tenancy rights.

Private parking firms like the bottom-dwelling One Parking Solution do not automatically have authority over tenants or their visitors. They can only operate within whatever rights the landlord or managing agent lawfully has, and those rights are constrained by the tenancy agreement. If your AST grants you parking rights, rights to use common parts, or is silent on parking restrictions, then a later permit scheme imposed by a managing agent or contractor is unenforceable against both you and your invited guests.

Equally important is what the AST does not say about parking. Many tenancies contain no requirement to display third-party permits, no obligation to comply with parking signage, no restriction on visitors parking, and no clause allowing the landlord or agent to introduce a charging or enforcement regime during the tenancy. Where those things are absent, a parking contractor has no contractual basis to issue charges to residents or their visitors.

For that reason, the first and most important step is to review the tenancy documentation for what it specifically says about parking and visitors.

What we need from you is the AST section, including any schedules, appendices, and plans that are referenced to parking. We also need to see any parking-related documents you were given at the start of the tenancy, such as welcome packs, estate rules, parking instructions, or emails or letters about permits. If you were later told that a parking enforcement scheme was being introduced or changed, please provide any correspondence about that as well.

Once we have the detail from the documents, we will check the tenancy for the following points. Whether the tenancy grants a right to park or a right to use the communal car park. Whether any parking right is conditional, and if so, exactly how it is conditioned. Whether the landlord or managing agent has any power under the tenancy to introduce new parking restrictions or permit schemes. Whether visitors are restricted or mentioned at all. And crucially, whether the tenancy allows third parties to issue charges or penalties.

Based on that analysis, the matter will usually be dealt with in one of two ways. If the tenancy supports your position, the primary route is to require the managing agent or freeholder to instruct their contractor to cancel the charge, on the basis that your guest was authorised by you and the contractor is interfering with your tenancy rights. If necessary, a formal challenge strategy will then be applied to the operator, grounded in the tenancy position rather than signage alone.

As for the PCN which was issued as a windscreen Notice to Driver (NtD), tell your visitor not to do anything for now. On day 27 after the issue of the NtD, they can appeal, ONLY as the Keeper. They MUST NOT identify the driver. Only the driver can be liable and the only way OPS could identify the driver is if the Keeper blabs hit to them. There is no legal obligation on the Keeper to identify the driver.

So, as the NtD was issued on 22 December, the appeal by the Keeper should be submitted on Friday 16 January. On that date, this is the sum total of the appeal that should be submitted as the Keeper:

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle. This is an appeal from the keeper only. The driver will not be identified.

My name and address for service are:

[KEEPER FULL NAME]
[KEEPER FULL POSTAL ADDRESS]

I deny any liability for this charge. The operator is put to strict proof of its standing and authority on this land, and strict proof that it can override the tenant’s primacy of contract and the tenant’s right to quiet enjoyment.

As you now hold the keeper’s full name and a current address for service, any application to the DVLA for keeper data would be unnecessary and disproportionate. If you nevertheless obtain or further process DVLA keeper data in these circumstances, I will treat that as unlawful processing contrary to UK GDPR Article 5(1)(c) (data minimisation) and the requirement for lawful processing under UK GDPR Article 6(1). I will report the matter to the DVLA and the Information Commissioner, and I reserve the right to pursue compensation for any damage or distress under sections 168 and 169 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Cancel the charge or issue your rejection.

The 14 day deadline you are referring to is the "mugs discount" period. You will only consider that if you are low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and are likely to pay it out of ignorance and fear.

This is not a "fine". It is a speculative invoice from an unregulated private parking firm for an alleged breach of contract by the driver. Just because someone gives you an invoice, do you simply pay it because it has a fantastic 40% discount offer? If so, you must never go to a market as you are likely to be fleeced.

The reason for the day 27 delay is to get the operator to reject the appeal without issuing a Notice to Keeper (NtK). If they fail to issue an NtK, then there is no Keeper liability under PoFA. Only the unknown (to them) driver can be liable.

They cannot apply for DVLA Keeper data until after day 28. By appealing on day 27 or close to it, they are forced to respond to the Keeper appeal and, as they always do, reject the appeal. The appeal also warns them of the operators liability under the Data Protection Act (DPA) that they would become liable to a claim for breach of the data minimisation principles, because you have already given them the Keeper details in the appeal. Therefore no lawful reason exists for them to apply to the DVLA for data they already hold.

These firms run on automatic and normally, they apply to the DVLA for the Keeper data and send the NtK once they have that data. If they simply go to appeal rejection without sending the NtK, there can be no Keeper liability whatsoever.

As there is no legal obligation on the Keeper to identify the driver, you must decline to do so. the ONLY way that the operator can know the identity of the driver is if the Keeper blabs it to them, inadvertently or otherwise. You, the Keeper, only ever refer to the driver in the third party. No "I did this or that", only "the driver did this or that". Don't tell 'em your name Pike!

As for your AST and parking rights, you confirm that your tenancy agreement and welcome pack do not mention parking at all. That means there is no contractual term requiring you to comply with a third-party parking scheme, to display permits, or restricting how your own parking bay may be used. Even though a parking regime existed on the estate before you moved in, it only binds a tenant if it is incorporated into the tenancy agreement or later agreed as a variation. In residential cases, the tenancy agreement takes precedence over signage or contractor arrangements that have not been made a term of the tenancy.

The fact that your guest parked in your own numbered bay is critical. You are entitled to use that bay as part of your occupation of the property, and that includes permitting a guest to park there with your authority. A parking contractor has no independent right to interfere with that use unless the tenancy expressly allows it.

The managing agent’s email does not override this. An email sent before you moved in is not part of the tenancy unless it was expressly incorporated into the AST or later agreed as a variation. Even taken at face value, it merely refers to registering two vehicles. It does not say that your own bay may not be used by an authorised visitor, does not impose a permit requirement, and does not authorise the issuing of parking charges to guests using your bay.

Importantly, there is no visitor parking scheme, no temporary permits, and no registration process for guests. Penalising an authorised visitor who parked correctly in your own allocated bay is therefore unreasonable and unsupported by your tenancy.

This places responsibility squarely on the managing agent. Their contractor can only act within whatever authority the agent lawfully has, and where the tenancy is silent on parking, there is no basis for a third party to impose charges or restrict use of your bay.

The next step will be to require the managing agent to instruct their contractor to cancel the notice on the basis that it was issued to an authorised visitor parked in your own numbered bay, and that the contractor is interfering with your tenancy rights and your right to quiet enjoyment.

Please show us the full managing agent email (including date and any attachments) and confirm whether you ever agreed to any parking terms. Once that is done, we can take this forward.

Thank you for the email exchange. Although the managing agent stated prior to move-in that up to two vehicles could be registered and that there was ‘no visitor parking’, the tenancy itself contains no parking terms at all.

The pre-tenancy emails are inconsistent and internally contradictory: visitors are variously described as permitted provided the vehicle is not left unattended, subject to random in-person checks, and also as liable to ticketing because the agent has ‘little or no control’ over the parking contractor. Those emails do not impose any clear, certain or enforceable restriction on the use of the tenant’s own numbered bay, nor do they evidence any agreed contractual variation of the tenancy. In particular, they do not prohibit an authorised guest from parking in the tenant’s allocated bay, and instead demonstrate an unmanaged, arbitrary enforcement regime operated by a third party without proper oversight.

Letting/Property Management agents in England must belong to a government-approved redress scheme. The two common ones are:

If they’re a letting/managing agent, you can threaten escalation to whichever scheme they are a member of (you can ask them which scheme, or it may be in their email footer/website).

If it’s a block managing agent (not your letting agent), they may also be a member of:


Separate to “ombudsman” style redress, you can also credibly mention escalation to:


You should send the following email to the managing agent and CC yourself with any correspondence:

Subject: Formal Complaint: Parking Charge Notice [PCN NUMBER] Issued to Authorised Visitor in Allocated Bay

Dear [Managing Agent Name],

I am writing to formally notify you that a Parking Charge Notice [PCN NUMBER] has been issued by your parking contractor to an authorised visitor of mine, whose vehicle [VEHICLE REGISTRATION MARK] was parked correctly in my own numbered bay.

As you are aware, my tenancy agreement and welcome pack contain no terms whatsoever relating to parking, permits, visitor restrictions, or third-party enforcement. There is no contractual requirement within my tenancy to display permits, to comply with contractor signage, or to restrict the use of my allocated bay, including by an authorised visitor.

Prior to moving in, I raised parking queries with you and received conflicting and unclear information. Visitors were variously described as permitted provided vehicles were not left unattended, subject to “random” in-person checks, and also as potentially ticketed because you have “little or no control” over the external contractor. At no point was it stated that an authorised visitor could not park in my own numbered bay, nor was any visitor permit or registration mechanism offered.

The issuing of a parking charge to my authorised visitor while parked correctly in my own bay is therefore wholly unreasonable and unsupported by my tenancy. Although the charge has been issued to my visitor, the interference is with my tenancy rights, including my right to quiet enjoyment and my ability to make lawful use of my allocated parking space. Your contractor has no lawful basis to penalise an authorised guest using my bay.

As the party who appointed the contractor, responsibility for their actions rests with you. I require you to immediately instruct your agent to cancel this Parking Charge Notice. If this charge is not cancelled and your contractor continues to pursue my visitor (including by debt recovery or litigation), I will treat that as a matter for which you are jointly responsible as principal, and I will consider taking action against you directly and/or seeking to join you to any proceedings, together with a claim for any resulting loss and distress.

If you do not resolve this matter, I will escalate a formal complaint through your complaints procedure and then to your redress scheme (TPO or PRS as applicable), as well as to the landlord/freeholder.

Please confirm by return that cancellation has been instructed.

Yours sincerely,

[Tenant Name]

The management agent doesn’t normally want to get involved because they’re trying to implement an illegal scam in which they make out you have to do something (display a “permit”, for example) without following the necessary steps to require this. So anyone who argues with them is an annoying inconvenience.