Are you at the correct stage to appeal?
You may only appeal to the adjudicator if you have first made formal representations to the enforcement authority that issued the Penalty Charge Notice and have received from them a Notice of Rejection.
With this Notice of Rejection the authority should send you an Environment and Traffic Adjudicators Notice of Appeal form and a verification code to allow you to appeal on-line.
You may either pay the penalty charge or appeal to the adjudicator.
If you do not receive a Notice of Appeal form from the authority you should contact them to obtain one if you wish to appeal. If you have to do this and as a result your appeal is late (see below), you should explain this on the form.
If you intend to appeal to the adjudicator you should do so within 28 days of the service of the authority’s Notice of Rejection.
If you submit your appeal outside the time limit you must provide reasons for the delay so that the adjudicator can decide whether to allow your appeal out of time.
You may either submit your appeal through our website or send it in the post.
Charges for submitting an appeal
There is no charge for appealing.
Preparation
Please read the notes which accompany the Notice of Appeal carefully.
One of the first questions on the Notice of Appeal form asks you whether you want a postal decision or a personal hearing.
Help deciding between a postal or a personal appeal.
If you decide you would like a personal hearing, you should indicate the times you are available to attend the hearing centre in the spaces provided on the Notice of Appeal. If you are submitting an appeal on-line you can select your own time and date for the hearing.
Grounds of Appeal
You should decide which of the grounds of appeal applies in your case. These can be found on the Notice of Appeal or by clicking on the relevant link below:
The adjudicator can only allow an appeal if one of the grounds is made out.
The adjudicator is not able to allow an appeal or reduce the penalty because you feel that the circumstances excuse the contravention, but if the adjudicator considers that those circumstances amount to compelling reasons, the adjudicator may refer the matter back to the enforcement authority for their reconsideration (this only applies to PCNs issued under the Traffic Management Act 2004).
Most regulations include specific exemptions. If you think your case might fall into one of the exempted categories, you should appeal and explain which exemption you think applies; the adjudicator decide if the exemption applies.
Evidence
You should send all evidence that you want to rely on to the adjudicator.
Please remember that the adjudicator does not hold any information on your Penalty Charge Notice and will decide your appeal based solely on the evidence submitted by the parties.
The adjudicator will not obtain evidence or contact witnesses on your behalf. It is for you to prepare your own case. For example, if you need information from the DVLA or police, you must contact them.
Examples of evidence you may wish to send to the adjudicator are:
- receipt for sale, if you no longer own the vehicle;
- delivery details, if you are claiming exemption by way of loading/unloading;
- photographs;
- witness statements
- key cases - check our database, but please note that an independent adjudicator considers every appeal on its specific merits
Remember to send clear copies and retain original documents.
If you are submitting your appeal on-line then you must submit viewable versions of any documents through the internet portal. You can do this either at the time of submitting your appeal or later, so long is this is not less than 5 days before the date of your hearing or expected date of the postal decision.
If you have sent in your appeal form in the post and wish to submit in evidence photographs in electronic format or moving images, please do so on CD, or DVD. Please note that we will retain it as we require a complete record of the evidence. Read guidance on submitting video evidence on DVD
In view of the significant security issues associated with their use, we cannot accept evidence on a USB flash drive.
Please also note that, if you present evidence at a hearing that we cannot retain, such as on a mobile telephone, laptop or camcorder, the adjudicator may need to adjourn the hearing for you to provide the evidence in a suitable form.
Your evidence and representations will be shared with the enforcement authority.
The enforcement authority will send the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators all the evidence it has on the Penalty Charge Notice and provide you with a copy.
Whether you choose a postal or a personal hearing, the enforcement authority must send you a copy of their evidence at least five days before the scheduled date.
Please note that, in common with other tribunals, all evidence/correspondence received will be securely disposed of six months after the date of the last action/correspondence in the matter.
What if I don’t have all the evidence I need at the moment?
Send in the Notice of Appeal as soon as you can and explain that your evidence will follow. Remember there is a strict time limit to return your completed form. When you receive a date for your hearing you will be told when you should send in your evidence.
If the date approaches and you still do not have all your evidence, you can contact the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators and ask for the appeal to be adjourned to allow you more time to gather it. Your request will be considered by the adjudicator.
You can bring evidence to a personal hearing but the adjudicator will decide how to deal with it.
Key cases
When you are preparing your appeal you might find it useful to look at key cases that have been decided before.
Go to our database of key cases
A number of the adjudicators' decisions have dealt in detail with points and principles of parking and traffic law. These key decisions are stored on this site for you to view. By searching key cases you may find one with circumstances which are similar to yours but remember that each case turns on its own facts.
You can search by the subject matter of the decision; click the arrow next to the subject field to view the subject index.
You can also use the keyword search which picks up words in the decision title e.g. pay & display.
Regulations
The regulations governing the appeals can be found at Regulations.