Free Traffic Legal Advice

The hirer is writing to appeal the above Parking Charge Notice issued by Premier Park Ltd.
The notice states that liability for the parking charge has been transferred from the vehicle hire company to the hirer. However, the notice received does not comply with the statutory requirements for transferring liability to a hirer under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
Where a vehicle is hired, Paragraph 14 of Schedule 4 requires that the parking operator must provide specific documents with the Notice to Hirer in order to transfer liability from the vehicle hire company to the hirer.

These include:
• A copy of the hire agreement
• A copy of the statement of liability signed by the hirer
• A copy of the original Notice to Keeper served on the vehicle hire company

The notice received consisted only of a single A4 letter and did not include any of the documents listed above.

As these mandatory documents were not provided, the conditions required to transfer liability from the vehicle hire company to the hirer have not been met. Consequently, the hirer cannot be held liable for this parking charge.

For the avoidance of doubt, the hirer is under no obligation to identify the driver and will not be doing so.
In light of the above, the hirer respectfully requests that this Parking Charge Notice be cancelled.

Yes, that’s the best single point of appeal.

They will probably reject your appeal “after careful consideration” but you’re starting down the right path even if so.

As predicted in Reply #1.

You need to appeal to POPLA, with an expanded version of the appeal already used, ie quote the appropriate legislation and lead the assessor through the logic as if they were totally dim (some of them are).

If you post here before sending you’ll get input.

POPLA Appeal – Parking Charge Notice (REDACTED)
Vehicle Registration: (REDACTED)
Operator: Premier Park Ltd

The appellant is the hirer of the vehicle and appeals this Parking Charge Notice on the following grounds:

1. The operator has failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in respect of hire vehicles and cannot transfer liability to the hirer.

This is a hire vehicle. The registered keeper is a vehicle hire company, who has named the hirer. In such circumstances, the operator must fully comply with Paragraph 14 of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to transfer liability from the keeper to the hirer.

Paragraph 14(2) of Schedule 4 states that the creditor may not recover any unpaid parking charges from the hirer unless the following documents are provided:

(a) a copy of the hire agreement;
(b) a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement;
(c) a copy of the Notice to Keeper served on the vehicle hire company.

These are strict and mandatory requirements.

In this case, the Notice to Hirer received by the appellant consisted only of a single A4 letter. The operator did not provide:

• any copy of the hire agreement
• any copy of a signed statement of liability
• any copy of the Notice to Keeper

No such documents were included with the notice, nor were they provided at any later stage, including with the rejection of the appeal.

As these documents were not provided, the operator has failed to comply with the mandatory conditions set out in Paragraph 14(2) of Schedule 4.

Paragraph 14(1) makes clear that the creditor may only recover unpaid parking charges from the hirer if the conditions in Paragraph 14 are met. As those conditions have not been met, the operator has no lawful basis to transfer liability to the hirer.

2. The operator has not identified the driver and cannot rely on keeper/hirer liability.

As the operator has failed to comply with POFA, they cannot transfer liability to the hirer. In such circumstances, only the driver can be held liable.

The operator has provided no evidence as to the identity of the driver. The appellant has not been shown to be the driver and is under no obligation to identify the driver.

Accordingly, there is no lawful basis on which the operator can pursue the appellant.

3. Failure to properly consider the initial appeal.

In the rejection of the initial appeal, the operator failed to address the substantive legal issue raised, namely non-compliance with Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in relation to hire vehicles.

Instead, the rejection simply restated that the vehicle was allegedly not parked wholly within a bay. This does not address the legal basis of the appeal.

This failure indicates that the appeal was not properly considered.


The operator has failed to comply with the strict statutory requirements required to transfer liability to the hirer. As a result, the appellant cannot be held liable for this charge.

The operator has also failed to identify the driver.

Accordingly, the appellant respectfully requests that POPLA allow this appeal and require Premier Park Ltd to cancel the Parking Charge Notice.