What to do about a Notice to Owner

What is a Notice to Owner?

A Notice to Owner is a council letter to the registered keeper about an unpaid Penalty Charge Notice. The council can send it once 28 days have passed since a ticket was put on the car or handed to the driver and the ticket has not been paid. It asks for the full penalty, not the reduced amount.

If your ticket came by post, for example from a camera, there is no Notice to Owner. The postal ticket does the same job, so treat it the same way.

For a council ticket, the registered keeper is liable even if someone else was driving. Private parking companies send a different letter, usually called a Notice to Keeper, which works under different rules, explained below.

Council: what are my 28 days for?

The Notice to Owner is your formal chance to challenge. You have 28 days from when it is served to pay or make a formal challenge, called representations. Use the form or online route it gives. A rejected informal challenge does not stop a formal one.

The council must reply within 56 days of receiving your representations. If it does not, the law treats your representations as accepted and the ticket must be cancelled.

A Notice to Owner cannot normally be served more than six months after the ticket.

Which grounds work?

These are the grounds set out in the regulations for England and Wales. You can also ask the council to cancel for compelling reasons, even if none of them applies.

• The contravention did not happen.
• You were not the owner at the time: you never owned the car, had sold it, or bought it later. Give the buyer's or seller's name and address if you know it.
• The car was being used without your consent, for example because it was stolen.
• You are a hire firm and the hirer had signed to accept liability for penalties.
• The penalty is more than the amount that applies.
• The council did not follow the rules, for example by missing a deadline. This is called procedural impropriety.
• The traffic order behind the restriction is invalid.
• The penalty had already been paid.

Not sure which of these fit your notice? Check it free. You see the verdict and the deadline before you pay.

Council: what if I do nothing?

If you neither pay nor challenge within the 28 days, the council can send a charge certificate, which increases the penalty. You then have 14 days to pay.

After that the council can register the debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court and send an Order for Recovery. Ignore that as well and the debt can pass to enforcement agents.

At that stage you can only challenge on narrow grounds, such as never receiving the Notice to Owner, using the witness statement form sent with the order.

Private: what is a Notice to Keeper?

A private company's charge is aimed at the driver. In England and Wales the company can make the registered keeper liable instead, but only with a Notice to Keeper that meets the rules in Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

Where no ticket was put on the car, the notice must reach the keeper within 14 days of the parking. Where a ticket was left on the car, the notice must arrive after 28 days and within 56 days of that ticket. A posted notice is treated as arriving two working days after posting.

The notice invites the keeper to pay, or to give the driver's name and address. If after 28 days neither has happened, and the company has followed every rule, it can pursue the keeper. The keeper does not have to name the driver.

Private: what should I do?

Appeal to the company in writing by the method on the notice. Under the industry code, the 28 days to appeal run from the first notice, which is the ticket on the car if there was one. Waiting for the Notice to Keeper can cost you the right to appeal.

If the company refuses, its reply tells you how to go to POPLA or the Independent Appeals Service. Do not ignore a Notice to Keeper: unpaid charges can end in a county court claim.