Bailiffs Can Now Charge Almost £1,350 to Chase a Single Unpaid Parking Fine

A driver who ignores a council parking fine can now face statutory bailiff fees of up to £1,349 once a case runs its full course, under a new fee scale that took effect on 1 May 2026. It is the first change to bailiff charges in more than a decade, and it lands while councils across England refer growing numbers of unpaid penalty charge notices straight to enforcement agents.

The Taking Control of Goods (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2026, a statutory instrument made under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, rebuilt the fee scale that enforcement agents can charge when they collect unpaid debts, including parking and traffic penalty charge notices referred by local authorities. The old three-stage scale had stood untouched from 2014 until this year. The new one has four stages, and the top end is considerably higher than before.

How a £70 Fine Turns Into a Four-Figure Bill

A parking or bus lane penalty charge notice usually starts at £60 to £130, reduced if paid within 14 to 21 days. Ignore it, lose an appeal, or miss the deadline, and a council can register the debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre and obtain a warrant of control. From there, the case passes to a certificated enforcement agent, commonly known as a bailiff, who can add the following statutory fees on top of the original fine:

• Compliance stage: £79 fixed, added the moment the case reaches the enforcement agent, for a letter warning the driver that action is coming.
• Enforcement stage one: £200 fixed, plus 7.5 percent of any sum recovered above £1,200, charged once an agent visits and makes contact.
• Enforcement stage two: £520 fixed, a new charge that did not exist under the old scale, applied where the case escalates beyond a first visit.
• Sale or disposal stage: £550 fixed, plus 7.5 percent of any sum recovered above £1,200, charged if goods, including a car, are removed and sold.

Add the four fixed fees together and a case that runs from a letter to a vehicle sale can attract £1,349 in bailiff charges alone, before the original fine, court costs, or any percentage-based charge on higher-value debts. Under the old scale, enforcement action stopped at three stages rather than four, so the newly split enforcement stage two represents a genuine increase in how much a stalled case can cost, not just an inflation adjustment.

Why Referrals Keep Rising

Enforcement industry figures published in recent years point to a steady rise in the number of parking and traffic penalties passed from councils to bailiffs, with the trade body representing enforcement firms linking the growth to the spread of congestion charging, clean air zones and low traffic neighbourhoods. Every new camera-enforced scheme creates another category of fine that can end up in the same enforcement pipeline if a driver misses the paperwork.

Once a case reaches an enforcement agent, the driver has far less room to negotiate than they did with the council. Agents have legal powers under Schedule 12 of the 2007 Act to enter a property in limited circumstances, clamp a vehicle parked on a public road, or remove goods for sale at auction. None of this requires a fresh court hearing. The warrant obtained by the council covers the whole process.

It Is Not Just Council Fines

The same fee scale does not stop at council parking penalties. A private parking charge from a car park operator can end up in exactly the same enforcement pipeline if it goes unpaid and a firm takes the driver to the county court. Once a judgment is entered and a warrant of control is issued, a certificated bailiff can apply the identical four-stage fee structure to recover a charge that might have started at £60 or £100 for overstaying in a supermarket or hospital car park.

Private parking firms issue far more charge notices than councils do, so the crossover is worth understanding. Watchdog scrutiny of the sector has focused on unclear signage and rejected appeals, but the enforcement route at the end of the process, once a firm has a county court judgment, now carries the same steeper fee ceiling as a council-issued penalty charge notice. A driver who assumes a private parking charge cannot escalate the way a council fine can is working from an outdated understanding of how the two systems now converge.

A Longer Warning, but a Steeper Bill

The amended regulations do give drivers one genuine improvement: the compliance stage notice period is extending from 7 clear days to 14, giving more time to pay, challenge, or arrange a payment plan before enforcement fees start stacking up. Anyone who qualifies for the Breathing Space debt respite scheme, or who has a debt adviser acting for them, can get this extended again to 28 days.

That protection only helps if a driver knows to use it. Enforcement agents are not required to explain Breathing Space unprompted, and the extended notice period does nothing to reduce the fees once a case does move past compliance stage. A driver who cannot pay within the new 14-day window still faces the same £1,349 ceiling as before, just with a slightly longer runway to avoid it.

What You Can Do Right Now

The fee scale only applies once a case leaves the council. Every stage is avoidable up to the point it is reached, and the earlier a driver acts, the fewer of the four fee stages apply.

• Pay or challenge before the deadline. A penalty charge notice can be formally challenged within 28 days, and informally disputed before that. Councils cannot add enforcement fees while a case sits with them.
• Missed the original notice entirely? Ask the Traffic Enforcement Centre for an out-of-time witness statement (form TE9) if you never received the penalty charge notice, charge certificate, or order for recovery. This can halt enforcement while the case is reviewed.
• If a bailiff has already made contact, you can still negotiate a payment plan. Fees already charged at whatever stage has been reached will stand, but a workable plan should stop the case moving to the next, more expensive stage.
• Ask about Breathing Space. A debt adviser can register a 60-day period, or in some cases longer, that pauses most enforcement action, including bailiff visits.
• Get free advice before anyone visits. Citizens Advice runs a consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133, and National Debtline offers guidance specifically on bailiff visits and vehicle seizure rules.

Councils including several London boroughs and enforcement schemes in Sheffield have expanded camera-based fining in the past year, widening the pool of drivers who could end up facing this fee scale for the first time. Anyone who has never dealt with a council penalty before should assume the old, cheaper enforcement process no longer applies.

A separate lesson from the amended rules is about addresses. A large share of bailiff cases begin with a penalty charge notice or court claim sent to an old address, so the driver never sees the compliance letter and the case moves straight to a home visit. Keeping a vehicle’s V5C registration document and the electoral roll entry at your current address, and checking gov.uk’s own record of any registered vehicle, closes off the single most common reason a case escalates without the driver realising it was ever open. Councils enforcing schemes such as the one that led to Birmingham’s clean air zone penalties rely on the same DVLA keeper address that a bailiff will use to trace a driver, so an out-of-date record works against the driver at every stage of the process. Updating a V5C takes minutes online and costs nothing, and it removes the single biggest reason a routine penalty escalates into a doorstep visit.

Sources:

• https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/366/contents/made
• https://sintons.co.uk/sintons_debt/changes-to-the-taking-control-of-goods-regulations-from-1-may-2026/
• https://nationalbailiffadvice.uk/Bailiffs-Traffic-Parking-Debt-Enforcement-Fact-Sheet.html
• https://www.gov.uk/your-rights-bailiffs