What POPLA is (and what it isn’t)
POPLA — Parking on Private Land Appeals — is the free, independent appeals service for private parking charges issued by British Parking Association members. It costs you nothing. It is not a court, and it is not the operator: an independent assessor reviews the evidence from both sides.
If your ticket came from an International Parking Community (IPC) operator instead, the equivalent free service is the Independent Appeals Service (IAS). Your rejection letter tells you which one you have.
Two stages, always in order: appeal to the operator first. Only if it rejects you does it have to issue a POPLA code — and you then have 33 days to appeal to POPLA online. Don’t pay in between: paying closes the case.
The grounds that win at POPLA
- No keeper liability. If the operator wants the registered keeper to pay, its notice must comply strictly with Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA). Many don’t — and you are under no obligation to name the driver.
- No landowner authority. Put the operator to proof that it actually has the right to issue and enforce charges on that land. A witness statement isn’t always enough.
- Inadequate signage. If the terms weren’t clearly displayed, no contract was formed and no charge arises.
- Not a genuine loss / grace period. A charge that bears no relation to any loss, or an overstay inside the mandatory grace period, should fall.
The quiet win: once you appeal, the operator has to submit its evidence to POPLA. If it doesn’t do so in time, your appeal is allowed by default — a surprising number of charges are dropped at exactly this point.
Your questions
What is POPLA?
POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) is the free, independent service that handles appeals against private parking charges issued by operators who belong to the British Parking Association (BPA). It is free to you, and it is funded by the parking industry rather than run by it. If the operator belongs to the other trade body, the International Parking Community (IPC), the equivalent service is the Independent Appeals Service (IAS) instead — check your rejection letter to see which one applies.
How do I get a POPLA code?
You must appeal to the parking operator first. If it rejects your appeal and it is a BPA member, it is required to send you a POPLA verification code (usually ten characters) along with the rejection. You then use that code to lodge your appeal on the POPLA website within 33 days. No code, or a refusal to provide one, is itself something to complain about.
What wins at POPLA?
At POPLA the burden is on the operator to prove its case, and many fail to. Strong grounds include: the notice does not meet the strict keeper-liability rules in Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, so you as keeper are not liable; the operator has no authority from the landowner to issue or enforce charges; the signage was inadequate so no contract was formed; the charge is not a genuine reflection of any loss; or a mandatory grace period was not honoured. If the operator does not respond to your POPLA appeal in time, you win by default.