FAQs

The full rate of the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) may be paid within 28 days from the date of issue – the details of the full rate and discounted rate are set out on the PCN. However, a reduced rate is offered if the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) is paid within 14 days of the issue date.

If a Parking Charge Notice is not paid or appealed within the relevant time period, it will be passed to a debt recovery specialist with additional costs being added. If payment remains outstanding, legal proceedings will likely be issued which may increase your liability for costs and legal fees.

If you are in financial difficulty or need advice about debt, or how you might pay the debt, please contact us to discuss options or you can contact an independent debt advisor. The following organisations offer free, impartial and non-judgemental advice and debt counselling:

Civil Enforcement uses your vehicle registration number to obtain the registered vehicle keeper details from the DVLA. Please see our privacy policy for full details of how we obtain registered keeper details and process that data.

You should appeal online by clicking here.

We will respond to your appeal within 14 days of receiving it.

The amount owed will not increase while your appeal is being reviewed.

The appeals department does accept appeals online. Please access: http://appeals.ce-service.co.uk/

We do not discuss Parking Charge Notices over the phone. Your appeal must be made in writing on our website. Our FAQs section should help answer many of the questions typically raised.

No – you can either pay at the full or reduced rate within the relevant time period or appeal the PCN. You cannot pay and then appeal.

You can easily check the status of your appeal using our website:

appeals.ce-service.co.uk.

We may take up to 35 days to make a decision on your appeal. The amount owed will not escalate whilst your appeal is being considered.

Please ensure you enter Parking Charge Notice reference, vehicle registration number and Registered Keeper postcode details as printed on the Parking Charge Notice.

We respond to correspondence relating to appeals within 14 days. You can check the status of an existing appeal online.

The amount of a Parking Charge Notice will not increase whilst your appeal is being reviewed.

Our Appeals Team will consider your appeal on its own merits and write back to advise you of the outcome. Please make sure to include any documents that you wish to submit in support of your appeal.

You have two options. If the appeal was rejected and you accept our reasons and supporting evidence, you can pay. Alternatively you can appeal to POPLA….

We write to the Registered Keeper of the vehicle as at the date of the parking contravention at the address provided to us by the DVLA. Please note that you may have moved house and changed your address on your driving licence but that is connected to you, the person.

Your V5 “logbook” – your registered keeper details – is the document that needs to be separately updated with the DVLA when you move address so that the registered address for the vehicle is correct and up to date. This must be done immediately whenever your keeper details change (e.g. when you move address) and it is an offence under Vehicle Licensing regulations to not do this ‘forthwith’ – that is immediately – and failure to do so could result in a fine of up to £1,000.

We obtain Registered Keeper details from the DVLA and will send correspondence to the Registered Keeper at the address provided by the DVLA. Where that address is the last known address of the Registered Keeper, a claim and CCJ can be issued against the registered keeper or driver using those details.

In circumstances where we have not received any response from you to our PCN or debt recovery correspondence and in line with the latest BPA Code of Practice, we will undertake a soft trace to confirm that you are still at the address provided to us by the DVLA before we issue a county court claim against you.

You have 28 days to submit your appeal to POPLA from the date we inform you that we have not upheld your appeal.

Should you decide to appeal to POPLA, the option to pay a discounted amount will no longer be available and the full amount of the PCN will become due if you are unsuccessful.

The amount will not increase whilst your appeal to POPLA is considered (and debt recovery action will not be commenced or recommenced during the POPLA process).

If your appeal to POPLA is successful, we will cancel the Parking Charge Notice and send you a written confirmation that the PCN has been cancelled.

If your appeal to POPLA is unsuccessful, the full Parking Charge Notice will apply.

Your blue badge does not entitle you to any parking privileges on private property. We would refer you to your blue badge handbook for more information.

The parking charge falls within the British Parking Association’s recommended guidelines for car park enforcement.

However, if payment is not made within the initial 28-day period (plus additional time period if the charge is appealed), we will instruct a debt recovery specialist to pursue the payment, which may result in additional enforcement costs. If the debt remains unpaid, we may initiate legal action which will likely incur court fees and further legal costs. The terms and conditions displayed on our car park signage clearly state that additional costs/recovery charges will be incurred if payment is not received within 28 days.

The DVLA has informed us that you were the keeper of this vehicle at the date of the incident.

If you were not the Keeper at that date, please obtain evidence of this from the DVLA and forward it to us.

Tickets that are issued on private land are not required to be placed on the vehicle windscreen.

The Road Traffic Act only requires statutory authorities to issue tickets on the vehicle windscreen.

Your file has been passed over as part of our debt recovery process, as a result of the non-payment of this PCN.

If you receive a court claim, it means Civil Enforcement Ltd has initiated legal action to recover the debt it believes you owe. You must read the claim form thoroughly and respond promptly. Do not ignore correspondence from the court. Failure to respond promptly could lead to a County Court Judgment (CCJ) being issued against you by default.

1. Pay the full amount. You can pay the full sum claimed within 14 days of receiving the claim to avoid a CCJ (County Court Judgment) being issued. Payment can be made online at ce-service.co.uk.

2. Can’t pay in full? Apply to pay in instalments. If you can’t pay it in one go and would like to propose a repayment plan, you should follow the instructions set out on the claim form. If you do not pay the full sum claimed within 28 days of your admission, a CCJ may be entered against you and will only be marked as satisfied once the full amount is paid.

3. Admit part of the debt. You can admit part of the debt and challenge any remaining sum claimed. Again, instructions for doing so are set out on the claim form you received from the court. You must pay the sum admitted within 28 days to avoid a CCJ being entered on your admission.

4. Don’t agree with the claim? Read the claim form carefully for instructions on how to acknowledge the claim or defend it.

If you receive a CCJ it means that the court has formally decided that you owe the debt to Civil Enforcement Ltd. Please note in this situation, the timing of your responses is key. Here are your options:

1. Pay the judgment in full within one month. If you pay the full amount (plus any fees) within one calendar month, the CCJ will be removed from the public register and will not appear on your credit report.

2. Pay the judgment in full after one month. If you pay the full amount (plus any fees) after one calendar month, the CCJ will remain on your credit file for six years, but will be marked as ‘satisfied’, which is preferable to ‘unsatisfied’ (unpaid). This may affect your credit rating and ability to obtain credit in the future.

3. Apply to vary the payment terms. If you can’t pay in full, but want to pay in affordable monthly instalments, you can apply to the court to vary the judgment.

4. Apply to set aside the judgment. You can ask the court to set aside (cancel) the judgment if you believe you have a valid reason. This will incur an application fee of £308 (currently – as of August 2025) if you apply directly to the Court.

Doing nothing will result in the CCJ remaining on your credit file for six years as an ‘unsatisfied’ judgment, negatively impacting your credit rating. In addition, the debt remains, and we can ask the court to enforce the judgment.

Yes, if you pay the judgment in full within one calendar month, it will not appear on your credit report. If you pay in full after one calendar month, the CCJ will be marked as ‘satisfied’ which lessens its impact on your credit file. You can also apply to have the judgment set aside (cancelled) if you believe you have a valid reason.

The amount of time you have to settle a court claim or CCJ depends on which stage you’re at in the legal process. If you’ve received a court claim, you have within 14 days of service to prepare your response (increased to 28 days if you acknowledge service of the claim). If you’ve received a CCJ, you should pay within one calendar month to have the CCJ removed from your credit report. In both cases it is important to act quickly.

Don’t worry. If you’re not able to pay the court claim in full, you can propose a repayment plan that suits your personal circumstances (this will need to be accepted by the court and/or Civil Enforcement Ltd). If you’ve received a CCJ, you can apply to the court to vary the payment terms.

An ‘unsatisfied’ (unpaid) CCJ will appear on your credit file for six years and may affect your ability to secure credit in the future.

For more information, please refer to this information provided by the StepChange debt charity.

If you believe that you have already satisfied the Parking Charge Notice, at any stage since the date of issuance, please provide Civil Enforcement Ltd with evidence of the payment and date, and we will investigate your specific case and confirm the status of the charge with you.

English is our official business language. Written and oral/telephone communications and correspondence with drivers/registered keepers and/or their agents and representatives, and any other external third parties, will be in English only. This includes PCNs, reminders, other notices, and responses to appeals and complaints, whether in email, SMS, or paper format.

Our normal practice will be to ensure that all our written correspondence is provided in appropriate and easily understandable plain English.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we obtain your data and what we do with that data once it has been obtained. The full privacy policy can be found at;

https://ce-service.co.uk/privacy-policy/