Challenge Your NCP
Parking Charge Notice
NCP runs both barrier-controlled multi-storeys and open, camera-monitored car parks across UK city centres. The grounds that win depend on which kind of site issued your charge - we work out which, and appeal on the ones that actually apply, for £10 on a best-effort basis.
Looking for the NCP payment page? Read this first
An NCP charge can be a keeper-liability notice or simply an unpaid barrier-park invoice, and they are not the same thing to appeal. Paying settles whichever it is and ends any right to argue the difference. On a notice that never met the Schedule 4 tests, the reduced amount is not a discount; it is money you did not owe.
- · The matter is closed immediately
- · You cannot later challenge the charge
- · No refund if the notice turns out to be defective
- · Free, and the two checkers below do the legal analysis for you
- · You draft and submit the appeal letter yourself
- · Worth doing if you have the time and want to word it yourself
- · Was the notice served in time?
- · Does it say what the law requires?
- · Free either way. If you would rather we write and submit it, that's £10 - best effort on this operator, so the fee is non-refundable
The right to appeal does not expire with the discount window. A defective notice is defective whether you spotted it on day 3 or day 30.
Two different things get called an “NCP charge”. At a barrier or staffed car park, you already agreed a price when you took the ticket or paid on exit - that is an ordinary contract, and an appeal turns on signage, the amount actually owed, or a payment or ticket that was not properly recorded.
At a camera-monitored site with no barrier, NCP has to trace you, the registered keeper, through the DVLA and post a Notice to Keeper within a strict legal deadline. Miss it, and they cannot make the keeper pay at all - regardless of who was driving.
Where NCP charges go wrong
We check every ground below and appeal on whichever apply to your specific car park.
On a camera-monitored NCP site with no barrier, paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 requires the Notice to Keeper within 14 days of the parking event. A notice posted on day 12 or 13 often lands too late once deemed-service rules are applied.
At a pay-on-exit car park, the charge has to match the tariff actually displayed at the point you entered, not a higher rate applied afterward. Discrepancies between the entry tariff and the exit charge are a real, checkable ground.
A lost-ticket fee is a term of the contract, not automatic. Where a bank statement or card payment record shows the true duration and amount owed, that evidence often overturns the flat lost-ticket charge.
Terms and current rates must be clearly displayed and readable before you commit to parking. Faded or contradictory signage across a multi-storey structure is a genuine basis to challenge the charge.
Where a Notice to Keeper was posted, Schedule 4 dictates what it must say - the period of parking, the amount and grounds, the invitation to name the driver, the keeper-liability warning. Missing any element is a defect.
App or machine failures at the point of payment are common at busy multi-storeys. Where payment was genuinely attempted, receipts and bank records usually settle it.
Full text of the keeper-liability deadline rule: Schedule 4, Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. For the plain-English version, and what a non-POFA notice means for you, see what POFA actually says.
How we handle your NCP appeal
Upload the charge notice, ticket, or any payment records you have.
Barrier, staffed, or camera-monitored - the grounds available differ, so this decides the strategy.
We draft and submit the strongest available appeal through NCP's own process.
We tell you when a decision arrives. If it is rejected and you want to go to POPLA, we take it there for you.
If NCP Rejects Your Appeal: POPLA
NCP is a member of the British Parking Association (BPA), so a rejected appeal comes with a free right of escalation to POPLA - the independent Parking on Private Land Appeals service.
An independent adjudicator, not the operator and not the trade body. POPLA has no financial interest in the outcome.
Nothing either way. The scheme is free to escalate to within the standard window, we do not charge again to take it there, and the charge is paused while the appeal is with them.
We run the operator-stage appeal first. If it is rejected and you want to go on, tell us and we prepare the POPLA appeal too. POPLA is the last stage we act at.
The full picture of what a rejection means, the deadline that follows it, and what to do if debt letters have started: parking appeal rejected, what happens next.
NCP appeal FAQ
It depends on the site. Many NCP car parks are barrier or staffed, where you take a ticket or pay on exit - a direct contract at the point of use, not a keeper-liability notice. Others are camera-monitored with no barrier, and it is those sites where a Notice to Keeper is posted and the 14-day Schedule 4 deadline applies.
No. NCP is a private company, and a charge notice is a civil invoice for an alleged breach of its terms, not a fine issued by a public body. It carries no penalty points and is enforceable only through the civil courts.
No, not on a keeper-liability notice. As the registered keeper you can appeal without identifying who was driving, and we never do.
NCP is a British Parking Association member, so a rejection comes with a free right of escalation to POPLA, an independent adjudicator. If you want to take it there, we prepare and submit that appeal too at no extra cost. POPLA is the last stage we act at - we do not go to court or deal with debt collectors.
Often, yes, on different grounds - a lost-ticket charge is usually challenged on signage, on whether payment can be evidenced by card statement, or on whether the amount charged is genuinely what the terms specify. Tell us which applies and we check it.
Related parking appeal guides
ParkingEye run ANPR sites at scale. The timing of the notice is usually what decides a keeper-liability appeal.
UKPC notices turn on timing, signage and wording - and on which independent scheme their rejection letter names.
For camera-monitored NCP sites: check whether the notice met the Schedule 4 deadline.
Work through the prescribed-information checklist against your own notice.
The general rules on when a private parking charge is actually enforceable, before you decide anything.
£10 flat fee. Best-effort route on this operator - full coverage details before you pay.