Parking expiation
Important changes to legislation
Due to a change in legislation, if you were not the driver or did not own the vehicle at the time of an offence you can now complete a Nomination Form instead of a Statutory Declaration. The Nomination Form is not required to be witnessed and signed by a Justice of the Peace.
It is important everyone has safe and equal access to on-street parking spaces in the city and North Adelaide.
The City of Adelaide promotes this by providing a range of parking conditions in line with the Australian Road Rules.
We issue Expiation Notices, with fees to be paid, to vehicles that have not followed these conditions.
The Australian Road Rules and expiation amounts are not set by the City of Adelaide.
We are not able to change them, however, we are authorised to expiate and our expiation process is in line with the Expiation of Offences Act (SA).
Helpful information about parking expiations
- All expiations are added into our system overnight. If you would like to pay the expiation on the same day that you received it, you will need to call us or visit our Customer Centre or any Australia Post outlet in person. Please note, we cannot give information on the expiation and you are not able to review it online until the next business day.
- It is the responsibility of the driver to locate the sign that applies and follow all the information on all panels of that sign. If unsure, you should move the vehicle and use an area where you understand the sign.
- Where there is a time limit indicated by a sign, you must not park in a zone or area for longer than the specified time limit. You can be expiated if you exceed the maximum time limit indicated on the parking sign, even if you buy another ticket.
- If you have a valid permit, you must ensure it is displayed clearly.
- In most cases, we will take a photo of your vehicle when we issue the expiation. However, we are not required to. You can view any available photos using our Review my parking expiation tool.
- If you have lost your parking expiation, please contact our Customer Centre and be prepared to provide your vehicle registration.
Stages of an expiation
Each expiation will go through a few stages from issuing until enforcement. The stages are:
Stage 1: Issuing of the Parking Expiation
You will receive a parking expiation either on your vehicle, in person or posted to you. You will have 28 days from the date of issue to pay, unless you have arranged a payment plan with the State Government's FERU. If you do not take action before the due date on your expiation, it will continue to Stage 2 and more costs will be added. Act now to avoid further fees.
Stage 2: Reminder Notice
A Reminder Notice will be issued if you do not pay or take any action, such as request a review, set up a payment plan with FERU, nominate another driver or elect to be prosecuted, before the due date. A Reminder Notice fee of $71.00 and a search fee (cost is dependent on the state and number of expiations) will be added to the original expiation amount. A further 14 days is provided to pay the total amount due.
Stage 3: Notice of Intended Enforcement
A Notice of Intended Enforcement will be posted to you advising that the expiation will be enforced after 10 days if you do not pay or take any action, such as request a review, set up a payment plan with FERU, nominate another driver or elect to be prosecuted. No further notices will be posted to you. Act now to avoid further fees and enforcement action.
Stage 4: Enforcement
Overdue expiations do not just go away. An expiation may be sent to FERU for enforcement if you do not pay or take any action, such as request a review, set up a payment plan with FERU, nominate a driver or elect to be prosecuted, before the date on the Notice of Intended Enforcement. Additional fees will apply and FERU may take further action to collect the outstanding debt. This may include suspension of your driver’s licence and stopping you from registering your vehicle as well as other potential actions. If you need to nominate another driver or owner of the vehicle, you will need to do this before enforcement otherwise the expiation will escalate in the owner’s name.
Your options
If you receive an Expiation Notice your options are to:
- Pay your expiation by the due date and avoid further fees.
- Enter into a payment arrangement.
- If you were not the driver or did not own the vehicle at the time of the offence, then you may complete a Nomination Form to have the expiation reissued to the correct person.
- Request a review of your unpaid expiation if you believe you should not have received the Expiation Notice or the offence is trifling.
- If you dispute the expiation and would prefer the matter heard by a Court, you can elect to be prosecuted.
1. Pay your Expiation Notice
You have 28 days from the issue date of the original expiation to make full payment. The pay by date will be provided on your original notice. If you do not pay by this date you will be sent a Reminder Notice with further fees added to your original expiation amount. If you wish to have your expiation reviewed, please do not pay it first. Once an expiation is paid it is considered finalised and will not be reviewed.
To pay your expiation you will need to:
- Find your expiation number on the Expiation Notice or any Reminder Notice sent to you. You also need to provide the vehicle registration number.
- Pay by any of the following options:
- online using a Visa or Mastercard (we recommend using Google Chrome, Safari or Microsoft Edge as your browser)
- over the phone by calling 1300 300 729 at any time using a Visa or Mastercard
- at any Australia Post outlet
- in person at our Customer Centre, 25 Pirie Street, Adelaide, Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm
- by cheque or money order to our postal address: GPO Box 1732, Adelaide 5001
2. Entering into a payment arrangement
The City of Adelaide does not accept part payments.
You can request a payment plan before the pay by date through the State Government’s Fines Enforcement and Recovery Unit using their application form.
Further fees may apply.
If the expiation is not currently in your name, you will need to nominate yourself as the driver or the owner of the vehicle before you arrange a payment plan
3. Nominate another driver or new vehicle owner
Important changes to legislation
Due to a change in legislation, if you were not the driver or did not own the vehicle at the time of an offence you can now complete a Nomination Form instead of a Statutory Declaration. The Nomination Form is not required to be witnessed and signed by a Justice of the Peace.
The registered vehicle owner is responsible for parking expiations issued to their vehicle.
If your vehicle has received an expiation and you were not the driver or did not own the vehicle at the time of the offence, then you may complete a Nomination Form to have the expiation reissued to the correct person.
If you own the vehicle but were not driving the vehicle at the time of the offence, you must fill out a Nomination Form nominating the driver with their full name, their current address or last known location, date of birth, license number and state of issue.
The Nomination Form can be completed online in a review application and must be received within 21 days of the date your Expiation Notice was issued.
If the driver was driving a hire car or a company car, the driver can nominate themselves or the hire company or company may nominate you.
We will then transfer the responsibility for the expiation into the nominated driver’s name and you will be advised.
Any vehicle ownership disputes should be resolved with Service SA before nominating a new owner.
If there was a delay in submitting the transfer to Service SA, or it was incorrectly completed, you may still be responsible for expiations received by the person you sold the vehicle to.
Visit SA.gov.au for more information about transferring vehicle registration.
If you recently sold or disposed of the vehicle and were not the registered owner at the time of the offence, you must fill out a Nomination Form nominating the owner with their full name, their current address or last known location, date of birth, license number and the date of sale. The Nomination Form can be completed online in a review application and must be received within 21 days of the date your Expiation Notice was issued.
We will then transfer responsibility for the expiation into the correct vehicle owner's name.
If you were driving the vehicle at the time of the offence but are not the owner, you do not need to transfer the responsibility into your name if you are going to make payment.
If you would like to put the expiation on a payment plan with the Fines Enforcement Recovery Unit, or you would like to elect to be prosecuted, you will need to nominate yourself as the driver by filling out a Nomination Form.
A Nomination Form can be completed online in a review application and must be received within 21 days of the date your Expiation Notice was issued.
4. Request a review
You can request a review of your expiation before you pay it.
Once an expiation is paid it is considered finalised and will not be reviewed. In most cases we will take a photo at the time of issuing an expiation.
We recommend viewing the details of your expiation and photos taken when we issued the expiation before you request a review.
You can view your expiation at our Review my parking expiation page.
If you still wish to have a review of an unpaid expiation, you can request one.
Please note:
- We review the expiation against specific review criteria such as:
- Your vehicle was stolen
- You have a valid reason and can provide evidence as to why your expiation should be waived. Ie. you can prove you had a valid ticket or a medical emergency.
- We will only review and provide a decision once, so it is important to provide us with all the information. You will need to provide us with as much information as possible when requesting a review of the expiation. If you do not have all the information you need to provide to us, please collect this first and then request a review before the expiation due date as further fees may apply.
- Once a review is submitted, you cannot lodge any additional reviews for the same expiation.
- All reviews must be done in writing – we cannot review your expiation over the phone or in person. However, when calling or visiting our Customer Centre, our Customer Service Representatives have delegated authority under the Local Government Act 1999 (SA) to advise if a review was requested if the expiation would have grounds to be waived or if there is a reason we should review. Please note if you request a review against advice provided, the result will commonly result in the same answer provided by our representatives.
- Reviews take on average a minimum four to six weeks to complete and your expiation will be placed on hold and no further fees will apply while we respond to your request. We may have already responded so please also check your junk folder for a response.
- The Lord Mayor and Councillors are unable to respond to enquiries about expiations.
Review criteria and further information
If you own the vehicle, you must:
- Report the vehicle as stolen to SAPOL as soon as possible and get a police report number. If you do not report it at the time of the vehicle being stolen, we will be unable to consider waiving the expiation.
- Provide us with your full name and contact number (in case we need extra information), the vehicle registration number and the police report number in your online review application.
We will then contact SAPOL to confirm the date the vehicle was stolen and the date it was recovered. If the expiation occurred while the vehicle was stolen, you will not be responsible for the expiation. We will contact you to advise you of the outcome.
If you believe that you should not have received the expiation, you can request a review.
These are the reasons we will consider:
- You can prove you had a valid ticket displayed
- You can prove you had a valid permit or permission issued by the City of Adelaide
- You can prove a medical emergency, that required immediate medical attention from a hospital or ambulance, occurred
- You can prove your vehicle broke down or experienced an issue
- There was a fault with the parking ticket machine
In most situations, you will be required to attach supporting evidence with your review.
It is unlikely we will withdraw an expiation without supporting evidence.
Here are some of the reasons we will not consider:
- You were unaware of the road rule. It is the responsibility of the driver to ensure they know and understand the Australian Road Rules.
- You were running late from an appointment, whether it be a medical, court or work appointment
- You did not read the parking sign or found it confusing. It is the responsibility of the driver to locate the sign that applies and follow all the information on all panels of that sign. If you are ever unsure of the information on the sign, you should move the vehicle and use an area where you understand the sign. Alternatively, you can contact us if you would like clarification on a particular sign.
- You moved your vehicle to another bay within the same zone or Area Parking location. Where there is a time limit indicated by a sign, you must not park in the zone or area for longer than the specified time limit. You can be expiated if you exceed the maximum time limit indicated on the parking sign and/or if you buy another ticket. If you have purchased the initial ticket through our Park Adelaide app, you may be able to extend your parking time through the app.
- You left your vehicle to get coins for the parking machine. You must have a valid payment method such as coins and credit/debit card available to use when you have parked your vehicle. If you do not have a valid payment method, you will need to locate alternative parking.
Once you have submitted your review request with any required documentation, we will conduct a full review considering your circumstances.
We may contact you if we need more information.
A review takes a minimum four to six weeks to complete on average.
Your expiation will be placed on hold and no further fees will apply.
We will contact you with the outcome after the review has been completed.
We may have already responded so please also check your junk folder for a response.
We will only review each expiation once.
You cannot submit any additional reviews for the same expiation.
If you were advised we will not waive an expiation then we will not enter into any further correspondence on the same notice.
Your next option is to elect to be prosecuted for the offence and have the matter dealt with in the Magistrates Court.
Find out more about disputing the allegation in court by electing to be prosecuted.
5. Dispute the allegation in court by electing to be prosecuted
Before going to court, you can request an online review at no cost.
If you choose to elect to go to court it may cost you more than the original expiation amount.
The City of Adelaide incurs costs as part of this process and we will seek to recover these costs as well as the original expiation amount.
If you wish to discuss the prosecution process prior to electing to be prosecuted, please contact the City of Adelaide Enforcement Officer on 8203 7541.
You will have the opportunity to exchange evidence and ask questions about court procedure.
However, please be aware that we cannot provide legal advice.
After this, you may choose to pay the expiation to finalise the matter without prosecution.
If you still wish to dispute the expiation rather than pay it, you can elect to be prosecuted for the offence and have the matter dealt with in the Magistrate’s Court.
It is important to note that electing to be prosecuted means:
- We will arrange for the matter to be heard and determined in court.
- You may receive a summons requiring you to attend court to contest the allegation.
- If it is determined that the expiation still stands, you may be required to pay further fees as well as the original expiation amount and it could lead to a criminal conviction.
To elect to be prosecuted you must:
- Complete the Election to be Prosecuted form found on the original expiation, Reminder Notice or Notice of Intended Enforcement
- Post the completed form to GPO Box 1732, Adelaide SA 5001
Please note the Election to be Prosecuted form must be returned. We cannot accept scanned or photocopied forms.
When attending court, make sure you arrive before the time listed on your Notice of Hearing and set aside several hours for your matter to be called and heard.
If your vehicle has been towed
We can tow your vehicle if you have parked your car in a Tow-away Zone, where it is causing an obstruction, or if it has been abandoned.
You must contact our Customer Centre to discuss collecting your vehicle.
We will advise you of the location where you can collect the vehicle after all towing and storage fees incurred have been paid (cheques are not accepted).
You must bring your vehicle registration notice and/or your driver’s licence with you to the collection point.
The vehicle will not be released to anybody acting on your behalf unless they present a written letter of authority (detailing full name of the vehicle owner, the vehicle registration number, your full name and that the owner authorises the collection) and your driver’s licence to do so.
Please note that storage fees for vehicles increase each day. All costs of removal and storage will be incurred by the owner.
If you receive an expiation it must be dealt with separately. Find out more about your options.