Parking fine help needed

[riverm]

I drove to home bargains and found it not open. There were a few other cars parked outside and another car drove into the car park after me, so I waited in case it was about to open. Then checked the times on my phone and left. I’ve received a parking charge for using the car park for 7 minutes. I did appeal. I was honest and explained what happened, this was rejected. Apparently I can appeal once more through a different channel but will have to pay the full £100 if they don’t agree. Is there anything I can say to help my case? I didn’t notice the sign facing out onto the street, no exactly easy to see and read before you go in. The terms and conditions are on the signs inside the car park but the one facing the street does say not to use when the shop isn’t open but the store open hours are inside the car park so you have to go in to see them. Do they have to allow a certain amount of time to read the signs? I was there 7 minutes.

Incorrect. The grace period applies in addition to a time properly parked in accordance with the rules eg overstaying parking you’ve paid for. It does not give you a right to free parking up to the length of the grace period. This is explicit in the Code of Practice (Section 5.2).

If you have not parked in accordance with the rules it is a consideration period. That is 5 minutes in this case.

@SnappyQuoter @AgentLisbon
i take it you didn’t see my sentence underneath stating to ignore me, as I got muddled

You thought home bargains was going to open by 9am on a Sunday, Easter Sunday too. It doesn’t take 7 minutes to work that out. Pay your fine.

That is exactly the point of the consideration period. It is 5 minutes. Not 6 minutes, not 7 minutes, 5 minutes.

5th April 2026 was a Sunday. Large shops can only legally open for 6 hours between the hours of 10 am and 6pm on Sundays, so there was no way that this shop was going to be opening at 9 am.

The sineage is clear that parking is only permitted between 10 am and 4pm, so it is the first clue that the shop would not have been opening. Even if @riverm had to drive in to see it, as soon as she did, it was enough information and she could have left the car park after 2 minutes.

There is a 5 minute consideration period that exists for reading signage in both Public and Private Carparks.. The OP was in the car park for 7 minutes. A grand total of 2 minutes over this and it can be reasonably stated she was waiting for the shop to open

You've said it yourself - the consideration period is for reading the carpark's signage. That's not what OP was doing, and she has already put this in writing to the parking company.

Whether you, me or a court thinks it was 'reasonable' for OP to use the carpark as somewhere to wait to see if a shop would open is irrelevant.

Most importantly their client (ie Home bargains) has not suffered any financial loss due to your mistake

This is a common misunderstanding. Courts have ruled for some time that unless they are manifestly excessive, parking charges are commercially justifiable in relation to managing carparks, therefore no actual loss has to be established. It is assumed any loss is secondary.

Be careful about some private parking companies though. We paid for 1 hour and stayed for just under. No 5 minute over staying. We got a fine because they said we paid for 30 minutes. As the machine didn’t offer 30 mins, the signs didn’t mention a price for 30 mins and we have proof of payment via our banking app, we haven’t paid the fine. DH has been chased 3 times now with court threatened. Bring it on! We aren’t paying any fine. We have informed Portishead port authority about their scamming car park operators though. Avoid this car park.

The internet is awash with people giving incorrect advice regarding charges by private parking companies, so let me take this opportunity to set out the actual law.

When you enter a car park, you trigger the start of the consideration period. This must be at least 5 minutes in most cases, but for most large car parks (more than 500 spaces) offering free parking for one hour or more it must be at least 10 minutes. At the other end of the scale, there is no consideration period at all for pre-booked parking and the consideration period is only 1 minute for some short stay parking such as airport drop off areas. The consideration period is not free parking. It is intended to allow you to decide whether to park, including finding an empty space and checking the terms. If you park and leave the premises or remain stationary for 5 minutes, the consideration period is over, so if you park, pop into a shop to buy something, get back to your car and leave, the operator can charge you even if that has taken less than 5 minutes. If your car remains in the car park after the consideration period has expired, you must pay. Unless it is a pay on exit car park or the signage specifically states that you can pay at any point during your stay, you must pay before the consideration period expires. Arguments about only being a minute or two over the consideration period will not get you anywhere. The only way you could successfully argue for longer is if the consideration period is too short to allow you to park and pay, e.g. the only way the parking operator allows you to pay is via a smartphone app but there is no signal in the car park.

If you have paid for a fixed period of parking, there is a grace period of at least 10 minutes for most car parks. The main exception is some short stay parking such as airport drop off areas, where there is no grace period. The purpose of the grace period is to allow for unexpected delays. As with the consideration period, arguments about only being a minute or two over the grace period will not get you anywhere. The only situation I can think of where you could successfully argue for longer would be at a pay on exit car park where the time allowed was insufficient to get from the payment machine to your car and exit the car park.

Some people think that whether the parking company or the owner of the land has suffered a financial loss is significant. It is not. Imagine a car park offering 2 hours free parking. The signs clearly state that you will be charged £85 if you overstay. When you arrive, the car park is half empty. You stay nearly 3 hours. The car park is still half empty when you leave. Clearly, no-one has suffered a financial loss due to you overstaying, nor has anyone been prevented from parking. However, you receive an invoice from the parking company for £85. Would the courts uphold that?

What I have just described is what happened to Barry Beavis. The parking company involved was ParkingEye. He ignored the invoice and the subsequent reminder and warning letter. The case went to court. Beavis lost. He appealed. He lost again in the Court of Appeal. He then appealed to the Supreme Court, where he lost again. The Supreme Court was clear that the fact ParkingEye had not suffered a financial loss was irrelevant. They held that the charge was a reasonable means of achieving two legitimate aims - to deter long stay parking that would reduce the availability of parking spaces to shoppers, and to provide an income stream to ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the car park and allow them to make a profit.

Parking companies know that, if they take you to court, they will win unless you can show that the signage was inadequate, the payment machines were faulty or there were mitigating circumstances such as breaking down. And, since the law changed to allow them to pursue the registered keeper of the car, they no longer need to identify the driver. That is why there has been such a huge rise in parking companies taking drivers to court. Some parking companies are more litigious than others. ParkingEye are one of the most litigious. But, regardless of the company involved, it is no longer safe to ignore charges from parking companies or assume they will go away if you appeal.

Having taken a look, I think your problem is that this is a pay on exit car park. Once you have paid for parking, you have 30 minutes to leave the car park. If you paid as soon as you arrived, I'm afraid the fact you paid for 1 hour is irrelevant. Payment terminates the parking period and triggers the start of the 30 minute grace period. You can let them take you to court if you want, but I suspect you will lose.

Of all the people on MN that you could pick a fight regarding a legal matter, @prh47bridge is the very last person that I would choose. This poster has consistently shown over many years that they know what they are talking about, and they very generously share their expertise here on MN. I would be listening to what they have to say.

And yes, I agree that it seems unreasonable to enforce a penalty on the OP for staying in the car park for an extra couple of minutes - it's shit for the OP, who didn't intend to abuse the car parking rules. But ultimately, it comes down to the question of whether the parking company can legally enforce the charge. And if @prh47bridge says that they can, then the OP would probably do well to cut their losses and pay up now so that she doesn't end up having to pay more later.

After the Beavis case, it's not really a 'penalty' or a fine, it's simply a charge for using the 'service' of the car park (however briefly). That's why they're enforceable, and that's why the companies issue the claims in the such volumes - it's essentially a clean breach of contract case. Once you've stayed over the consideration period, you're deemed to have accepted the terms and are bound by them. The law sees it that you've had the benefit of the contracted service but ignored the quid pro quo obligation to pay.

Thanks for clarifying. I did wonder if I might have the terminology wrong!

@prh47bridge We paid for 1 hour, and have the bank account and signage for 1 hour. How can paying for 1 hour be irrelevant? That was all we could do. Paying on exit isn’t clear. There’s no mention of 30 mins on the signs or via any payment method that we could see. Not quite sure how paying for 1 hour is changed to 30 minutes and we stayed for under 1 hour. They had our money for 1 hour and the times they have given for our stay do not correspond to when we were there either. Completely different! Anyway we haven’t paid the fine, so we will see. A court case seems over dramatic!

I'm not certain exactly which car park you stayed in, but given that you talk about Portishead Port Authority, I presume that you are referring to the marina car park. The signs setting out the fees can be seen on Google Street View and clearly say "Pay on exit". And the events you have set out clearly indicate a pay on exit car park.

If a car park is pay on exit, your parking session starts when you enter the car park and ends when you pay. After that, you have 30 minutes to exit the car park (or whatever other grace period the operator allows - usually displayed on notices or on the payment machines). If you pay on entry, you have cut your parking session short to just a few minutes. The fact you have paid the same fee as someone who stayed 59 minutes before paying is irrelevant. That is the contract as per the notices.

You may think a court case is over dramatic, but if you refuse to pay that is where it is likely to end up.

Just to add, if the signs have changed or I have the wrong car park and it genuinely doesn't say anything about "pay on exit", you have a case that the signage was unclear. But if the signs say "pay on exit", they mean what they say - you must only pay when you are leaving, not when you arrive or at any other time during your stay.

"Stop embarrasing yourself"

Grace periods are 10 minutes
Consideration periods are 5 minutes

You cannot pick random cases and imply that the judgement will apply to all subsequent cases. It does not work like that.

Barry Beavis overstayed by 56 minutes
Beavis ignored the initial parking ticket and all futher corresponence up until court.

@SnappyQuotermixed up the terminology but got OP’s legal position and associated time limits spot on. You are repeatedly arguing and doubling down with lawyers and others who know the law and the rules, seemingly based only on what you feel should be the position, even when it has been clearly explained to you that it categorically isn’t and why.

One is a much better look than the other.

I can quote the Supreme Court and say that their reasoning and the rules they have laid down will apply to all subsequent cases. It does work like that. That is exactly how precedents work in the courts. And I can quote many cases in lower courts that have followed the Supreme Court's reasoning and support what I say. You will note that I stated that Beavis ignored all correspondence until he was taken to court. That fact was irrelevant to the outcome of the case.

You said in your first post that you were not offering sound legal advice. Please stop contradicting those who are offering sound legal advice.

@prh47bridge So the attached is what we believed to be the case. Pay and display. We paid the amount for 1 hour so cannot see how we are accused of getting it wrong. We didn’t see pay on exit when we were there! However Portishead is not seeing us again.

Interesting. That is the car park I can see on Google Street View with signage saying it is pay on exit. Google's image was apparently taken in July 2025, so either it has changed since then and is now pay and display or the information you have found online is out of date. I don't live anywhere near Portishead, so I am not in a position to check. However, if it is indeed pay and display you should win. You paid for 1 hour, you should get 1 hour plus the grace period.

😂😂😂

at least you’re providing entertainment.

Is the information you have screenshot provided by the operator of the car park itself, though? They both read as if they might be from a third party, such as a hotel or location website or from ChatGPT.

@APatternGrammar One is the Portishead Marina web site. However it’s very confusing when paying for 1 hour is apparently not paying for 1 hour!

If the Portishead Marina don’t operate their own car park and the operator’s signs were clear unfortunately you still might be out of luck (though you should definitely complain to the Portishead Marina in that case)

@APatternGrammar We did. I can see dh probably didn’t realise signs were different from info we had looked up. This was 6 months plus ago now! We haven’t heard anything for months.