How to avoid getting parking fines

This is actually very difficult.  The most obvious way is to only park where you are able, make sure that you pay any meter and that you display any ticket.  Of course, occasionally, you will get caught out.  You may stay beyond the allotted time, you may not notice a restriction, you may have thought that you would simply get away with it. 

Firstly you have to ascertain whether you are on private land or public land.  If you are on public land or the highway then the notice should be from a traffic warden, parking attendant or whatever they happen to be calling themselves this week.

If you are on private land such as a supermarket car park the "fine" is not actually a fine and will have come from a private company.  Private parking charges are unenforceable in Court although they will often sell these "fines" to a private company and they will hassle you.  Simply refer them to the driver of the car but don't say who the driver is.  That should get rid of it.  Expect them to write to you lots of times but you can simply ignore the correspondence.  A friend of mine has been getting letters from a debt collection company in respect of his overstay in a supermarket car park, for the last two years.  He simply ignores them. 

If, however, your PCN is from a traffic warden you have more of a problem. 

Once upon a time, if the road markings were defective you could appeal the penalty and get away with it.  There has been recent case law that stopped it.  We don't agree with the case law but the case law has been decided by the Courts and so we are stuck with it.  Prior to the most recent cases if the double yellow lines for example were defective (too narrow, too wide, too close together, incomplete, or didn't have the correct end markings at the end of the lines) you could say that the lines were defective and get away with it.  No more.

Assuming that you genuinely overstayed in error then you don't actually have any cause for appeal.  Sometimes, a nice letter explaining that you only stayed over the time by 45 seconds and that the warden had been a bit over zealous and that you had had a headache or were waiting for the toilet or whatever (only if its true of course) and would they consider removing the charge.  At this stage, you will get further with a kind word than a gun.  If you send a really scathing bolshy letter in they will simply keep the notice in force and if you want to appeal it you will end up in Court.  The Courts are generally unsympathetic with parking overstayers and you will simply end up paying double what you would have paid had you paid the fixed penalty.  Remember that the local authority has got far more money and time to go to Court than you have.  It is all in a day's work for them and they get paid for doing it whereas you have got to take time off and out of your day to go to Court. 

Of course, if the signage is completely defective and, for example, there are no signs visible which say the parking is not allowed and that there is a restriction, simply take lots of photographs and go for it. 

Often, the cost (and particularly legal costs) of appealing/defending most PCN's is more than the cost of penalty itself.

This is not meant to be a definite list of how to appeal a parking but simply a few pointers to point you in the write direction.  We suggest that you take legal advice, however, be prepared to pay more for the legal advice than the penalty notice.