The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“PoFA”) exists, in the private parking context, to deal with one practical problem faced by private parking firms.
A private parking charge is not a fine. It is a claim said to arise under contract law. A parking firm argues that a Driver saw the signs, accepted the terms by parking, and agreed to pay a charge if certain terms were breached. Whether that is correct in any given case depends on ordinary contract principles. The basic rule is simple: only the person who made the contract – the Driver – would normally be liable.
The difficulty for parking firms is that they usually do not know who the Driver was. What they can obtain from the DVLA is the name and address of the Registered Keeper. But in law, the Registered Keeper and the Driver are not automatically the same person. Owning or keeping a vehicle does not make someone responsible for every agreement another person might enter into while driving it.
Before the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, that distinction was decisive. If the Registered Keeper was not the Driver, there was no automatic route to hold the Keeper liable for the Driver’s alleged breach of contract.
Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduced a limited statutory exception to that ordinary rule. It allows, in defined circumstances, a parking firm to pursue the Registered Keeper for an unpaid parking charge even though the Keeper may not have been present, may not have parked the vehicle, and may have had nothing to do with the alleged contravention.
That is an unusual legal step. In most areas of private law, one person is not made liable for another adult’s contract simply because they own the property involved. PoFA creates a specific and narrow exception to that principle. It permits liability to be transferred from the Driver to the Registered Keeper, but only if the firm complies strictly with the conditions laid down in the Act.
PoFA does not create parking charges.
It does not make defective signage enforceable.
It does not turn private charges into statutory penalties.
It does not impose automatic Registered Keeper liability.
And it does not apply on all land.
It applies only on “relevant land” as defined in the Act, and only where the statutory requirements are fully met. If those conditions are not satisfied, the exception does not operate. The legal position then reverts to the normal rule: any liability remains with the Driver alone.
PoFA therefore sits on top of contract law rather than replacing it. The underlying claim, if there is one, is still contractual. PoFA simply provides a tightly controlled mechanism that can, in limited circumstances, shift potential liability from the person who allegedly parked to the person who is registered as keeping the vehicle.
Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedom Act 2012