Accepting your appeal

 

Once you have submitted your Notice of Appeal to us, the council will be told about your appeal.

If the council:

  • accepts your appeal

you do not need to pay the ticket. Any online cases will be closed, and any organised hearings will be cancelled.

  • does not accept your appeal 

an independent Legal Member of the First-tier Tribunal (a lawyer) will decide your case.

 

Hearing your appeal

 

If your appeal proceeds, you can choose to have:

  • an online decision, where the Legal Member looks at all the evidence you submitted online and decides your appeal based on that
  • a postal decision if you appealed by post. Again, the Legal Member will base their decision on the evidence submitted for consideration
  • a telephone, video, or personal hearing

In any appeal, Legal Members cannot consider why the incident happened or whether it happened for a 'good reason'. They can only consider the legal grounds of appeal and nothing else.

 

Tribunal members

 

Alexander Green, Chamber President

 

Petra Hennig-Mcfatridge, Solicitor, Forfar

Rosemary Sorrell, Solicitor

Aileen Devanny, Solicitor, Motherwell
Gary McIlravey, Solicitor, Dundee
John Walker, Solicitor, Ayr 

 

 

Telephone video and personal hearings

 

Telephone, video, and personal hearings last around 30 minutes. These hearings may take longer to arrange as they are subject to the availability of Legal Members and venues.

Someone from the council that gave you the ticket is allowed to attend a personal, telephone or video hearing. You will be told before the hearing if someone will be attending.

Personal hearings are held in the area where the incident took place. You will be given 28 days' notice of the date and venue for the personal hearing.

You can ask the First-tier Tribunal whether your hearing can take place closer to where you live. If you require any adjustments or support to attend and take part in your hearing, please let the First-tier Tribunal know in advance.

If you want someone to attend the personal hearing in your place you must:

  • let the First-tier Tribunal know in advance
  • give the person a written letter that says you want them to attend for you and has your signature on it

Decision

Online application

If you appealed using PBLA Online, the First-tier Tribunal will send you an email telling you when a decision has been made. You will need to sign in to Transport Appeals online to see the decision.

Postal applications

If you appealed by post, the Firs-tier Tribunal will send you a written decision about your appeal.

The decision will be:

  • appeal won
  • appeal lost

Appeal won: 
This means you do not need to pay the ticket, or your recovery fee may be refunded in car-towing cases.

Appeal lost:
You'll need to pay the ticket within 28 days of receiving the decision. 

 

Reviewing the Tribunal's decision

 

You may ask the First-tier Tribunal to, or the First-tier Tribunal may on its own initiative, review the decision. A review will be carried out where it is necessary and in the interests of justice to do so.

If you want the First-tier Tribunal to review the decision you must apply in writing and send a copy of your application to the other party/parties. You must make your application within 14 days of the date on which the decision was made or within 14 days of the date that the written reasons were sent to you. You must also explain why a review of the decision is necessary.

The First-tier Tribunal will refuse your application if it is wholly without merit.

If the First-tier Tribunal believes your application has merit it will notify the parties in writing inviting them to provide their views on the application and whether it can be determined without a hearing. You will be given a time limit within which to respond. The First-tier Tribunal may, at its discretion, give the parties its provisional views on the application.

If the First-tier Tribunal believes your application has merit, it will review the decision at a hearing unless it considers, having regard to any responses, that a hearing is not necessary in the interests of justice.

Where practicable, the review will be undertaken by one or more of the members of the First-tier Tribunal who made the decision to which the review relates.

If the First-tier Tribunal decides to review the decision on its own initiative, it will tell the parties of the reasons why the decision is being reviewed and it will invite the parties to provide their views and whether the matter can be determined without a hearing.

Any review of a decision does not have any impact on the time limit for appealing the decision. If you choose to appeal the First-tier Tribunal’s decision, you must still do so within the specified time limits.       

 

Appealing the Tribunal's decision

 

If you wish to appeal the decision, you must make a written application to the First-tier Tribunal for permission to appeal. The application for permission to appeal must:

  • identify the decision of the First-tier Tribunal to which it relates
  • identify the alleged point or points of law which you wish to appeal
  • state the result you are seeking

Permission to appeal must be sought within 30 days (ie the application for permission to appeal) and must be received within 30 days of:

  • the decision being appealed against being sent to the Appellant; or
  • if later the statement of reasons was sent to the Appellant

If a decision was given orally at a hearing, the application for permission to appeal must be received within 30 days of:

the date on which written reasons were sent to the parties if:

  • written reasons were requested at the hearing (or were requested in writing within 14 days, beginning with the day after the last day of the hearing); or
  • the First-tier Tribunal or the Upper Tribunal, as appropriate, undertook at the hearing to provide written reasons; or
  • within 30 days of the date of the oral decision, if:
    - written reasons were not requested at the hearing (or were not requested in writing within 14 days beginning with the day after the last date of the hearing); or
    - the First-tier Tribunal or the Upper Tribunal, as appropriate, did not undertake at the hearing to provide written reasons

The First-tier Tribunal has the power to extend the time for requesting permission to appeal on “cause shown”.