Cato is an AI-powered appeal tool that checks your UK parking ticket against real tribunal decisions, analyses your case and writes the appeal letter for you. Free, no account.
Every argument is reliably based on legislation: 25 statutory provisions quoted verbatim from the Traffic Management Act, the Protection of Freedoms Act and the 2022 enforcement regulations. When you have no case, Cato says so plainly.
Step 01
Upload a photo or fill in the form.
Step 02
Cato weighs your grounds against past decisions and your authority's own figures.
Your case is well-founded. You hold a valid resident permit (ref BCC-RP-778214) that was active from 1 March 2026 - more than a month before the PCN was issued on 3 April 2026 - and you parked in the correct zone. The permit's existence and validity are verifiable from Birmingham City Council's own records. The statutory ground is straightforward: the contravention did not occur because the vehicle was correctly permitted at the time and location. The council's rejection without addressing the permit's validity is the weakest point in their position.
Click to see example assessment
Step 03
Confirm what evidence you have, then get a letter written around your case.
To: Birmingham City Council
I am writing further to my earlier representations regarding Penalty Charge Notice BCC44219087, which the council has rejected. I am not satisfied that the rejection engaged with the substance of my case, and I am now making formal statutory representations against the Notice to Owner served on me in respect of this PCN. I intend to pursue this to the independent adjudicator if necessary. I rely on the ground set out in regulation 5(4)(a) of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions Regulations 2022: the alleged contravention did not occur.
Click to see example letter
Step 04
Once you have created your account, we remind you when to chase a response, and you track the outcome in My Appeals.
Step 01
Upload a photo or fill in the form.
Step 02
Cato weighs your grounds against past decisions and your authority's own figures.
Step 03
Confirm what evidence you have, then get a letter written around your case.
Step 04
Once you have created your account, we remind you when to chase a response, and you track the outcome in My Appeals.
Based on legal precedent and the most successful arguments, allowing Cato to significantly outperform generic AI models.
A separate check confirms every law and case cited is real and correctly applied, so nothing invented reaches your letter.
England, Wales and Scotland run different rules, and private car parks a different code again. Cato applies the right one. Northern Ireland isn't covered yet.
No. A "Parking Charge Notice" from a private company is not a fine or a penalty - it is a demand for payment under contract law, based on the terms displayed on signs at the car park. Only councils, police and other public bodies issue true penalties.
14 days from service for a PCN fixed to your windscreen or handed to you, and 21 days for a PCN issued by CCTV or camera and sent by post. Pay within that window and a £70 penalty becomes £35, a £130 penalty becomes £65.
The debt grows through a fixed escalation ladder. After 28 days without payment or representations, the council serves a Notice to Owner. Ignore that, and a Charge Certificate follows, increasing the penalty by 50% - a £130 PCN becomes £195. Ignore that too, and the council can register the debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, adding a registration fee, and an Order for Recovery follows. After that come enforcement agents (bailiffs), whose fees dwarf the original penalty.
No. The test is whether the restriction was adequately signed for a motorist taking reasonable observation - not whether this driver actually saw it. If the signs complied and were visible, not noticing them is not a ground, and adjudicators refuse this argument daily.
No - there is no legal obligation to name the driver of your own car to a private parking company anywhere in the UK. This is different from police and speeding matters, where the law does compel keepers to identify drivers.
Better than most people assume, if - and only if - there is a genuine ground. The tribunals’ own 2024-25 figures: 50.6% of decided parking appeals succeeded across London (including cases the council did not contest), with wide variation by borough - Westminster parking appeals succeeded 66.1% of the time. Outside London, 44.9% of decided parking appeals and 62.3% of bus lane appeals succeeded at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.
Not on private land in England and Wales. Section 54 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 made it a criminal offence to immobilise a vehicle, or move it or restrict its movement, without lawful authority - that is what ended commercial wheel-clamping in 2012. In Scotland, clamping on private land had already been held unlawful by the courts in Black v Carmichael (1992). The keeper-liability scheme in Schedule 4 of the same Act was the trade-off given to operators in place of clamping.
Usually, but not always. The tribunals have a discretion to accept a late appeal where there is a good reason - serious illness, absence, or the notice genuinely not arriving - explained honestly and supported by evidence. Apply anyway, state the reason for lateness up front, and do not invent one: adjudicators read late-appeal excuses with a practised eye.
Not necessarily. Enforcement agents can only act on a penalty that has been registered at the TEC and passed through the full notice sequence. If you never received the underlying notices - a common story after a house move - the TE9/PE3 procedure can still unwind the registration, and enforcement should pause once the application is lodged and being processed. If the 21 days from the Order for Recovery have passed, file with a TE7/PE2 explaining the lateness honestly.