Ticket paperwork sent late or incomplete

For a bus lane or moving traffic penalty caught on camera in England outside Greater London, the council must issue the penalty charge notice within 28 days of the day the contravention happened, and the notice must contain a specific list of information. If the date printed on the notice is outside that window, or it leaves out something the rules require, that is a procedural impropriety and an express ground for cancelling the charge. Two things to know before you rely on it. If the council asked the DVLA for the keeper's details within 14 days and the DVLA had not replied in time, the council gets six months instead of 28 days — so a notice that looks late may not be. And what counts is the date the notice was issued, not the date it landed on your mat.

Legal basis

Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Approved Devices, Charging Guidelines and General Provisions) (England) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022/71): reg.2 ('relevant road traffic contravention' includes an OGL bus lane contravention and an OGL moving traffic contravention), reg.1(5) (regime does not apply to Greater London bus lane or moving traffic contraventions), reg.10(5) (service on the owner; content required by Schedule 2 and by reg.3(2) of the Appeals Regulations), reg.10(6) (no penalty charge notice after 28 days beginning with the contravention date), reg.10(7)-(8) (six months where DVLA particulars were requested within 14 days and not supplied in time), Schedule 2 paragraphs 1 and 3 (the regulatory matters and the particulars for a regulation 10 notice); Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (S.I. 2022/576): reg.5(4)(f) (procedural impropriety on the part of the enforcement authority is an express ground), reg.5(2)(b)(ii) (compelling reasons to cancel even where no ground applies), reg.6(2) (representations may be disregarded after 28 days from service), reg.6(3) (authority must decide within 56 days), reg.7 (appeal to an adjudicator); Traffic Management Act 2004 Part 6 and Schedule 7 paragraphs 6 and 8. For contraventions before 31 May 2022 the earlier regime under the Bus Lane Contraventions (Penalty Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2005 (S.I. 2005/2757) is preserved by S.I. 2022/66 article 3(4)-(10).

How to identify this in your case

Find two dates: the date the contravention is said to have happened, and the date printed on the notice — for a camera ticket the rules require that to be the day it was posted. Count the days between them, and ignore when it actually arrived, because the rule bites on when the council issued it. More than 28 days and it is outside the normal window, but the council can lawfully take up to six months if it asked the DVLA for your details within 14 days of the contravention and the DVLA was slow, so ask it to confirm those dates rather than assuming. Then check the notice actually contains everything it must. From Schedule 2: the council's name, your registration, the date and time of the contravention, the amount, how to pay, why they say a charge is payable, that it must be paid within 28 days of service, the discount and its deadline, and what happens if you neither pay nor make representations. And separately, from regulation 3(2): that you may make representations and that late ones may be disregarded, what kind of representations you may make, the form to use, the address including any email, fax or online submission address as well as a postal one, that you may appeal to an adjudicator if refused, and how to appeal. For a camera ticket it must also tell you about your right to see the evidence. That right is worth using on its own: you can require the council to let you view the camera record free of charge, or to send you free stills, and it must comply within a reasonable time. Note your own deadline too — the council may ignore representations made more than 28 days after the notice was served on you.

Sample appeal wording

Before you send this

Deadline. A late submission can be turned down without your argument being read. Check your notice for the deadline and how it is counted.
Paying may end it. Paying can count as accepting the notice and can close a challenge already under way. Part-paying or acknowledging an old debt can also revive a time limit that had expired.
The amount can change. Check what happens to the sum if you challenge — it may be held, re-offered lower, or keep rising, and fees or enforcement can continue meanwhile.
Use the official route. Use the method, recipient and form your notice specifies, with any reference, evidence and signature it asks for. Sent elsewhere, it may not count.
Only say what is true. Do not copy any statement of fact unless it is true for you, and check the legal point still applies. Delete what does not fit. It may be treated as your statement.
Careful what you volunteer. Avoid unnecessary admissions — naming the driver or accepting responsibility can remove arguments. But answer anything you are legally required to answer, and do include the evidence your ground needs.
Keep the record. Keep what you sent, the attachments, any receipt, and the reply. Note the next deadline.

Sample wording to adapt and send yourself — it may not fit your notice or the stage you are at. Replace the bracketed prompts with your own details; leave any case citation as it is.

Dear Sir or Madam, Re: PCN [NUMBER] — vehicle [REGISTRATION] — alleged contravention on [DATE] I am the recipient of the above penalty charge notice and I make formal representations against it. [USE THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY IF YOUR DATES SUPPORT IT — LATE ISSUE. I rely on the ground at regulation 5(4)(f) of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022: there has been a procedural impropriety on the part of the enforcement authority. Regulation 10(6) of the Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Approved Devices, Charging Guidelines and General Provisions) (England) Regulations 2022 provides that the authority may not give a penalty charge notice after the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the contravention date, and paragraph 3(1)(a) of Schedule 2 requires the notice to be dated the day it is posted. The contravention date shown on this notice is [DATE] and the notice is dated [DATE], which falls outside that period. I am aware that regulation 10(7)(a) and 10(8)(a) extend the period to six months where the authority requested the registered keeper's particulars from the Secretary of State within 14 days of the contravention date and those particulars were not supplied before the 28 days expired. If you rely on that extension, please tell me the date the request was made and the date the particulars were supplied.] [USE THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY FOR ITEMS GENUINELY ABSENT — MISSING PARTICULARS. I also rely on regulation 5(4)(f). Regulation 10(5)(b) requires the notice to include the information set out in Schedule 2 to those Regulations and in regulation 3(2) of the Representations and Appeals Regulations. This notice does not state [delete all that do not apply — from Schedule 2: the name of the enforcement authority / the registration mark of the vehicle / the date and time of the alleged contravention / the amount of the penalty charge / the manner in which it must be paid / the grounds on which you believe a penalty charge is payable / that the charge must be paid within 28 days beginning with the date of service / the discount and the date by which it must be paid / what will happen if I neither pay nor make representations — and from regulation 3(2): that I may make representations and that representations made after 28 days may be disregarded / the nature of the representations I may make / the form in which they must be made / the address for representations, including any email address, FAX number or online submission address as well as a postal address / that I may appeal to an adjudicator against a refusal / the form and manner in which an appeal may be made / the effect of regulation 3(3)].] [USE THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY IF YOU WERE NOT THE OWNER — AND NOTE IT IS A DIFFERENT GROUND. I rely on the ground at regulation 5(4)(b): I [never was the owner of this vehicle / had ceased to be its owner before the alleged contravention occurred on [DATE] / became its owner after that date]. [As required by regulation 5(5) and 5(6), the person to whom I disposed of the vehicle, or from whom I acquired it, is [NAME AND ADDRESS].]] [OPTIONAL — add only if true. I also ask you to consider, under regulation 5(2)(b)(ii), that whether or not the above grounds are made out there are compelling reasons why you should cancel this penalty charge in the particular circumstances of this case, namely [reason].] [USE THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY IF YOUR NOTICE WAS ISSUED FROM A CAMERA OR OTHER APPROVED DEVICE — the right below applies to an approved device notice, not to one handed over or fixed to the vehicle by a civil enforcement officer. This penalty charge notice was issued on the basis of a record produced by an approved device. Under regulation 3(3) of the Representations and Appeals Regulations I require you either to make that record available for viewing by me free of charge at one of your offices at a time during normal office hours, or to provide me free of charge with such still images from it as you consider establish the alleged contravention. Regulation 3(4) requires you to comply within a reasonable time.] I ask you to cancel this penalty charge notice. If you reject these representations, please serve a decision notice setting out your reasons together with details of my right of appeal to an adjudicator. Yours faithfully, [YOUR NAME] [YOUR ADDRESS]

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Ticket paperwork sent late or incomplete

Legal basis

How to identify this in your case

Sample appeal wording

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