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
Most people search for the payment portal before they have checked whether they owe the charge at all. Paying settles the matter and ends any right to challenge it - so on a defective notice, the discounted amount is not a saving. It is money you never owed.
- · 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.
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 and advise on POPLA if it is rejected.
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 to escalate within the standard window, and the charge is paused while the appeal is with them.
We handle the operator-stage appeal first. A rejection that should not have happened is exactly what the independent stage exists for.
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. We advise on this stage as part of the fee.
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
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.