Free Traffic Legal Advice

OPS clearly never listened to their school teachers when they said "It's your own time you're wasting".

At some point you do actually want them to respond to your appeal so if you haven't actually provided your full name at any point I'd be tempted to just send one final short reply along the lines of:


EDIT: posted above before I saw your most recent reply.

...To process the appeal which was submitted on the 18/11/2025 we require the full name being, the title, full first name and last name.

The "title, full first name and last name" of who? Are you saying that that is the sum total of the content of their email?

Whose details have you provided? Yours? As what? The appellant? The Keeper? The driver?

This is how you should respond to that request:

Subject: Parking Charge reference – [REFERENCE]

Dear Sirs,

I refer to your latest email demanding, yet again, “full name being, the title, full first name and last name” before you will even deign to process an appeal that you received on 18 November.

This is getting silly.

You already hold my full name as supplied by the DVLA and printed on your own Notice to Keeper. That Notice is addressed to me by full first name and surname. That is quite obviously sufficient to identify me as the subject of the parking charge. The fact that I choose to use an initial and surname in correspondence, or to omit a courtesy title, does not magically turn me into a different person or entitle you to put the appeal into limbo.

Nothing in PoFA, in your trade association rules, or in the Private Parking Single Code of Practice (PPSCoP) permits you to refuse to process a keeper appeal unless the keeper jumps through contrived hoops about titles and forenames. Clause 8 of the PPSCoP states that “The parking operator is only required to deal with an appeal from the subject of the parking charge”. You addressed the NtK to me and claimed it is a “Notice to Keeper”, therefore I am the subject of the parking charge. You are required to respond to my appeal, submitted in my capacity as the keeper. You do not require anything further.

I repeat: I will not be providing details of the driver. I am not liable to pay this parking charge. Cancel the charge, or reject my appeal.

Your repeated attempts to manufacture spurious “requirements” (first the driver’s identity, now a particular format of name) as a pre-condition to even considering an appeal are wholly misconceived, contrary to the PPSCoP, and appear designed to frustrate and deter consumers from exercising their rights. That is not legitimate administration; it is gamesmanship, and the behaviour of clampers-in-all-but-name.

For the avoidance of doubt, this practice – of refusing to process a valid keeper appeal unless the consumer provides unnecessary extra personal details or identifies the driver – will be reported to the Competition and Markets Authority as a potentially unfair commercial practice under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. If the CMA concludes that this conduct falls within the scope of a prohibited practice, you run the risk of a CMA sanction which could be extremely financially painful for your company.

This is now very simple:

1. You process my appeal as keeper, using the information you already hold, in accordance with your trade body rules and the PPSCoP; and
2. You either cancel the charge, or you issue a formal rejection.

Any further template emails demanding yet more invented “requirements” or purporting to “hold” the charge instead of dealing with the appeal will simply be retained as evidence of your conduct for complaints to the DVLA, your ATA, the CMA and my MP, and for production to the court should you be unwise enough to litigate.

Yours faithfully,

[NAME]
Registered Keeper

Appeal to the IAS, for what it's worth, with the following:

Parking Charge Reference: [REFERENCE]
Vehicle Registration: [VRM]
Site: Roe Green Centre
Date of Alleged Contravention: 01/11/2025
Date of NtK: 05/11/2025

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle. The driver has not been identified and there is no admission as to the identity of the driver. This appeal is made strictly in my capacity as keeper.

The parking operator has rejected my appeal without addressing the substantive grounds raised, in particular (i) the absence of keeper liability under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“PoFA”), and (ii) the non-compliance of their enforcement with the mandatory consideration period required by Section 5.1 of the Private Parking Single Code of Practice (“PPSCoP”). The rejection simply recites generic assertions about “the driver” entering into a contract and failing to park within a bay, while wholly ignoring the status of the keeper and the statutory conditions which would be required before any keeper liability could arise. The operator has therefore misdirected itself as to the legal framework and IAS is invited to correct that error.

This appeal is advanced on the following grounds.

1. No keeper liability – non-compliant Notice to Keeper and no admission as to driver

(a) The operator’s entire case, as set out in the rejection letter dated 4 December 2025, is that “the driver” entered into a contractual agreement with One Parking Solution (“OPS”) by choosing to park or remain on the site, and that “the driver failed to park the vehicle fully within the confines of a marked bay”. The rejection repeatedly attributes the alleged conduct to “the driver” and at no point asserts that any contractual obligations arise as against the registered keeper.

(b) At common law, any alleged parking contract can only bind the contracting party, namely the driver who is said to have seen and accepted the terms. A registered keeper is not, merely by reason of keepership, liable in contract for any act or omission of an unidentified driver; there is no general common-law doctrine that transfers a driver’s contractual liabilities to the vehicle’s keeper.

(c) The only statutory route by which a private parking operator may hold a non-driving keeper liable in respect of an alleged parking charge is the scheme contained in Schedule 4 to PoFA. That statutory scheme is expressly conditional: the creditor “has the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid” only if, and only if, the conditions set out in paragraphs 5, 6, 11 and 12 (in the case of a notice to driver followed by notice to keeper) or paragraph 9 (in the case of a notice to keeper only) are strictly complied with.

(d) My original appeal squarely raised the point that the Notice to Keeper (“NtK”) does not comply with all of the mandatory requirements of Schedule 4. It therefore cannot create any keeper liability. The operator’s rejection letter does not dispute this proposition, nor does it purport to explain how their NtK satisfies each and every statutory condition. Instead, OPS simply ignores PoFA altogether and continues to assert a cause of action against “the driver”.

(e) PoFA is a carefully drafted piece of legislation which sets out a series of cumulative pre-conditions for the transfer of liability. Substantial, partial or “near enough” compliance is not sufficient; the statutory wording is clear that the right to recover from the keeper arises only “if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met”. Any omission or defect in the NtK is fatal to keeper liability.

(f) In circumstances where: (i) the operator has adduced no evidence that the Appellant was the driver; (ii) there has been no admission as to who was driving; and (iii) the NtK fails to satisfy Schedule 4 in full and has not been shown to do so, the legal position is straightforward. OPS may (if it wishes) pursue the unidentified driver in person, but it has no lawful basis to recover any sum from the registered keeper.

(g) IAS is invited to determine, as a matter of law, that no keeper liability has arisen and that the appeal must therefore be allowed, regardless of any alleged conduct by an unidentified driver.

2. Failure to observe the mandatory consideration period – breach of Section 5.1 PPSCoP

(a) The alleged contravention arises from an observation of less than one minute on site. OPS was made expressly aware of this in the appeal and of the fact that Section 5.1 of the PPSCoP requires operators to allow a minimum consideration period for drivers to read the terms and conditions and decide whether to stay or depart. A charge cannot lawfully be issued for conduct taking place within that initial consideration period.

(b) Rather than engaging with Section 5.1, OPS has chosen to mischaracterise the consideration period, asserting in its rejection that “a grace/consideration period is not a free parking period and will not apply if the driver is making use of the land” and that choosing not to read the terms “is a choice”. That is a self-serving gloss on the Code, not its content.

(c) The PPSCoP sets a minimum consideration period as a mandatory consumer protection measure. It recognises that drivers must be given sufficient time, after stopping and before being bound by any contract, to locate, approach and read the signage and then decide whether the terms are acceptable. That period is, by definition, a period during which no parking charge may be enforced. If it were otherwise, the requirement for a “minimum” consideration period would be meaningless.

(d) An observation period of less than one minute is, on any sensible view, incapable of satisfying that requirement. Within such a short interval, a driver may still be manoeuvring, checking bay markings, looking for signage or deciding whether to remain on the site at all. It is not credible to contend that within under a minute the driver had both read and accepted detailed contractual terms, including an onerous parking charge, and then immediately breached them in a legally enforceable way.

(e) The alleged contravention is “Failure to Park Within a Marked Bay”. If the vehicle was still in the process of parking, repositioning or assessing where to park during the very brief period captured by OPS’s images, the vehicle was not yet “parked” at all in the legal sense. The operator has adduced no evidence of any meaningful “period of parking” outside the consideration period; mere time-stamped still photographs taken seconds apart do not prove that the vehicle was stationary and in breach for any appreciable duration.

(f) By issuing a charge almost instantaneously, OPS has acted contrary to the PPSCoP. As a member of an accredited trade association and a beneficiary of DVLA data access, OPS is required to adhere to that Code. IAS, as the associated appeals body, should not endorse an enforcement action which is plainly at odds with a mandatory sector-wide code of practice.

3. No evidence of clear contractual terms brought to the driver’s attention prior to alleged breach

(a) The burden lies on OPS to prove that, before any alleged breach, the driver was given reasonable notice of the terms said to form “The Parking Contract”, including the obligation to park fully within marked bays and the imposition of a substantial parking charge for non-compliance.

(b) The rejection letter relies on a generic assertion that the “T&C’s apply to all users of the site and are fully and clearly displayed on the parking signs”. No site plan has been produced showing the location and orientation of the signs relative to the bay in question, nor has OPS demonstrated that a driver would inevitably see and be able to read the terms in the short time available. The operator has therefore failed to discharge the evidential burden of proving that the terms were sufficiently brought to the driver’s attention before any alleged contract could be formed.

(c) It is trite law that particularly onerous or unusual terms must be clearly and prominently drawn to the attention of the party to be bound. A sizeable parking charge for a trivial alleged deviation from the lines of a bay is an onerous term. Without evidence of prominent, legible signage directly proximate to the location, no court would be satisfied that such a term was incorporated into any contract.

(d) In light of the extremely short observation period, OPS would need to show compelling evidence that the signage was not only present, but positioned and illuminated such that a driver could reasonably be expected to locate it, approach it and read it within seconds. No such evidence has been provided.

4. Procedural unfairness and improper attempt to manufacture driver liability

(a) Before finally issuing their rejection, OPS repeatedly refused to process the appeal unless I first disclosed the full legal name and title of the “driver” or of the appellant. These demands were made despite OPS already holding my full name, as supplied by the DVLA and printed on its NtK, and despite the PPSCoP making clear that an operator need only deal with an appeal made by the “subject of the parking charge”, which in this case is plainly the keeper named on the NtK.

(b) OPS’s correspondence confirms that their real purpose in erecting artificial “requirements” about naming conventions was to obtain the identity of the driver. That conduct is inconsistent with a fair and impartial appeals process and strongly suggests that OPS is aware it cannot rely on PoFA and is therefore seeking to side-step the statutory scheme by extracting a driver admission.

(c) The IAS should view this background as relevant context when assessing OPS’s credibility and its approach to its legal obligations. An operator which is unwilling even to engage with clear statutory arguments, and instead resorts to contrived administrative hurdles, should not be rewarded by having its charge upheld.

5. Conclusion

In summary:

(i) The operator has failed to establish any lawful basis for keeper liability under PoFA.
(ii) The alleged contravention was recorded within a time frame incompatible with the mandatory consideration period required by Section 5.1 PPSCoP, so no enforceable charge can arise.
(iii) OPS has not proved that the contractual terms were clearly brought to the attention of the driver prior to any alleged breach, particularly given the very short observation period.
(iv) The operator’s own correspondence confirms that it continues to pursue an unidentified “driver” while ignoring the statutory limitations on pursuing a non-driving keeper.

For all of the above reasons, the Appellant respectfully submits that the parking charge is not recoverable from the registered keeper and that this appeal must be allowed.

Morning.

We've logged into IAS website and have registered, jumped through the hoops. It does give the option to Appeal with a "nominate Representative" and that it can be Appealed as the Keeper, under "motorists Details" it states:

"You reported that you were the registered keeper but is not prepared to state who was driving at the time the parking charge was issued.

You reported that you are being held liable for the parking charge."

There is a 1000 word max box for the Appeal letter to be pasted into and an "add file" option for the PDF to be uploaded.

Do we need to add any of OPS email responses or is this for them to send to IAS once IAS contact them on receipt of this Appeal Letter?

Haven't pressed "Submit" yet, just don't want to do anyone else's job for them. It also states we have till 5th Jan 26 to submit the Appeal so there's time, but wanted to press on with it so things don't go astray over the festive period.

We know the IAS could reject the appeal still, and that our efforts may prove "fruitless" but we would rather be a "rotten fruit, not quite ripe for the picking, and not hanging too low for the easy picking either "

  Thanks.

Pressed "submit your Appeal" and its just buffering away...    

We'll get it sent, one way or another 

You can try a different browser or try emailing it to adr@theias.org

Morning.

We've had a reply from IAS. Looks like they've reset the Appeal made to them and want us to Appeal again.

Why have a "nominate Representative" section, then not allow the appeal to be logged by the "Nominated Representative"?

Despite the fact that OPS has already rejected the original appeal!!

Shall we submit the Appeal again? The NTK doesn't have an email address and doesn't want to set one up either.

Is it worth appealing by post?? and replay to the email saying so appeal is also in the post?

Dear XXXXXXX

We have been contacted by the Parking Operator, One Parking Solution Limited, who have advised that you appealed against the above Parking Charge stating that you were the registered keeper but not the driver of the vehicle at the relevant time. 

However, the Parking Operator, have advised that it was not yourself who appealed to them initially and therefore you should not appeal to the IAS.

We have removed the association with this appeal to allow the liable party to challenge the charge should they so wish or authorise yourself to act on their behalf as a ‘Nominated Representative’.

Please let the liable party know that they can lodge the appeal.

For more information or help with regards to appealing to the IAS, please click on the ‘Online Appeals User Guide’ at the top of the screen.  Please see Chapter 4 of this section regarding the ‘Nominated Representative’.


Kind regards,

The IAS


Independent Appeals Service
PO Box 662, Macclesfield, SK10 9NR

Looking back through the thread, you were advised that the initial appeal and the IAS appeal were to come from the Keeper only. They have no idea who the driver is unless you inadvertently blabbed it to them.

As the IAS are an irrelevance, I wouldn’t worry too much about their incestuous relationship with the operator. Simply respond with the following:

Subject: IAS Appeal – Parking Charge Ref [REFERENCE] / VRM [VRM]

Dear Sirs,

Your email is noted.

It is difficult to see how an “independent” appeals service can justify taking at face value a self-serving assertion from the parking operator and then purporting to “remove the association” of an appeal, rather than dealing with the facts in front of it. In any event, for the avoidance of doubt, the position is simple and unequivocal:

The registered keeper named on the Notice to Keeper is the only person who has appealed at every stage.

The initial appeal to One Parking Solution Limited was made by the registered keeper.

The appeal to the IAS was made by the registered keeper.

There has been no nomination, substitution, or change of appellant at any point.

Accordingly, the operator’s claim that “it was not yourself who appealed” is factually untrue. Your decision to disassociate the appeal is therefore misconceived, and appears to have been taken without even the most basic diligence. It is not the keeper’s job to navigate arbitrary administrative hurdles erected on the operator’s say-so.

The registered keeper denies any liability. The Notice to Keeper does not fully comply with the mandatory requirements of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and, as a matter of law, no keeper liability can arise. The driver has not been identified and will not be identified. These are not optional niceties; they are fundamental points of law which the operator has repeatedly attempted to side-step with misdirection and procedural gamesmanship.

If the IAS now chooses to refuse to determine an appeal by the keeper on the basis of invented or misapplied procedural objections, that will be noted for what it is. Any further obfuscation, including any continued refusal to process this appeal despite the above being crystal clear, will be retained and relied upon in full against the operator should they be ill-advised enough to commence proceedings. It will stand as evidence that the operator and its associated “appeals” brand have failed to provide any fair or credible form of alternative dispute resolution, and that the operator has instead sought to frustrate and deter the exercise of consumer rights.

For the avoidance of doubt, I require the IAS to reinstate the appeal and to determine it on the merits. If you decline to do so, please confirm explicitly that the IAS is refusing to determine a keeper’s appeal notwithstanding that the keeper is the only appellant. That confirmation will be preserved.

No further correspondence will be entered into unless and until you either reinstate the appeal or provide the above confirmation.

Yours faithfully,

[FULL NAME]
Registered Keeper