How to Dispute a Parking Ticket in Toronto?

First and foremost you need to know that parking tickets do not affect your record and do not raise the premium on your insurance coverage.

Parking tickets are issued against the licence plate of your car, and not against you, the driver. In other words, it is your car that gets the parking ticket and not you!! Therefore, even if you give your car to someone else to drive and they park it on a handicap spot, or do not pay to park at designated spots, the parking tickets gets issues against the license plate number of the registered owner on the car and that makes you responsible for paying it or disputing your parking ticket in Toronto.

If you don’t dispute a parking ticket in Toronto, a conviction will be registered based on fail to respond, and there will be additional charges added to it. Some of those fees may also include late payment fee. This will cause some inconveniences when it comes to renewing the validation sticker that goes on your licence plate, as you have to pay all the outstanding fines against that plate number in order to renew the sticker.

There have been many cases, when some pranksters remove the tickets from the windshield or the wind blows it away and unbeknownst to you, you get a notice of conviction for your parking ticket in Toronto, and you may wonder what to do with that notice, as the amount of fine by then would have also increased.

There are 2 options available to you at that time. You can either re-open your case, or appeal the conviction. You have 14 days to appeal the conviction, and that required you to pay the fine and ask for an appeal date. If the time tofile an appeal for a parking ticket in Toronto has past, then you have to file motion to extend time to file an appeal, and that means asking the court to give you permission to appeal the ticket.

The easier way to deal with those overdue parking tickets in Toronto is to re-open them. That requires you to go to City of Toronto parking authority and get a list of all the parking tickets that have been issued against your licence plate number, and then attend the administration office of the City of Toronto court services and fill out the forms to re –open those cases.

You will be given a date to go and see a Justice of the Peace to explain your reasons, and if he or she agrees with you, those convictions are set aside and a court date may be scheduled for you to fight or dispute your parking ticket in Toronto.

Keep in mind that parking infraction are absolute liability offences. That means there are hardly any defence for them, unless you can challenge the notes and the “independent recollection” of the issuing officer in court. Normally if your car has been illegally raked, the “excuse” for it is not a defence but only an explanation that may mitigate the circumstances and reduce or cancel the amount of the fine, if the Justice of the peace agrees with your reasons.

More information about how to deal and dispute a parking ticket in Toronto can be found on City of Toronto’s website at this link. http://www.toronto.ca/pay-toronto-tickets/index.htm