Hi all,

Didn't found a thread exactly dealing with my case so just opened a new one :-)
i moved to zurich a year ago and had a private parking space there. a couple of month ago we moved to a new appartment in zurich without private parking. when we changed the address, i also applied for resident parking in the blue zone and received immediately a temporary parking permit for the blue zone. based on the woman of the "gemeinde" office i was expecting that the final parking permit will come by post. since no park permit for the blue zone arrived, i just called the department responsible for issuing parking permits the week before my temporary permit expired. there i was told that i have to change my car registration document (fahrzeugschein) first and then the "final" parking permit will be automatically triggered.
the process than was as follows:
1) change car registration document to new address
2) receive a payment slip a few days later for paying the annual fee for the parking permit (in my case 180 CHF for may to dec 2011)
3) receive the parking permit for blue zone where i live now
i did the steps above, but since i discovered the steps above only a week before expiration of my temporary permit i was parking my car for 3 days in the blue zone with an expired parking permit. i thought at that time, that it wouldn't be too bad, since the final permit was on the way and the old one showed that i was obviously a person living in that area and entitled to park there. when i finally received my valid parking card i put it directly in my car, replacing the old one.
some weeks later however i received a letter from the police department, stating that i was parking there with (a) an old permit and (b) for more than 10 hours and that my case was therefore transfered to some kind of judge. i had to fill out a form at the back of the letter about the car driver who parked there, why i parked there and so on and was asked to send it back within 10 days.
surprised and scared that a judge was immediately taking care of my heavy violation of swiss parking laws i called the police office. they told me, that 3 days of parking in the blue zone with an old permit would cost me probably around 700CHF (!!!).
The funny thing is that my temporary blue zone parking card was valid until 5th of may and my new "final" one that arrived a week later was valid starting from 6th may.
does any one has ever had a similar case? i was just wondering how the judge will decide, since his judgement is still outstanding at the moment. i sent with my reply copies of my 2 parking permits to state that i was basically covered the whole time and that i paid for the whole time (temporary and final parking card) and that i was only parking there with an old permit because of a time leg until the final parking card arrived.

any chance to get arround the 700 CHF up in the air like the police told me? i know swiss are very strict about there rules and fines, but 700 seems to be far too much.... especially when taking into account that my final permit was allready on the way.....
thanks for any suggestions or experiences :-S

We got fined for the permit having slipped slightly out of view on the dashboard. Still visible but I think some of the details were hidden.

I think the fine is based on not displaying your permit. Doesn't matter if it was in the post or paid or whatever. They're finicky buggers for that kind of rule.

Good that you've presented all the paperwork for now, though. Maybe they'll make some kind of allowances.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best...

thanks for the replies.
btw, does anybody knows how long it approximately takes for the judges decision and until i hear back from them?
thanks

Let us know what happens Chris. Hopefully there might be a rare application of common sense and the "sprit of the law".

Eager to know what happened !!!

well, so far, nothing..... the whole process until i finally receive my fine will take another 2 month appr.
i sent the letter with my information back to the police, 2 weeks later i received a letter stating that my case does not qualify for police judge and it is therefore transfered to the next "higher" judge (statthalteramt), they told me that they probably need around 2-3 month to come to a decision...:-S
anyway, i start to understand now why the fines are so rediciously high...
my case went from police to police judge, from there to "statthalteramt" (another higher judge, as i understand) and to the "amt für administrativmassnahmen" (these guys decide, if i will loose my license or not, and can issue addittional fines on me (for what!!!)).
anyway, will keep you updated as soon as the bomb drops in

If you have to pay the fine anyway, ask to be present at the hearing - possibly either the judge will realise he has to convene in court which is a pain, or he might at least allow you to plead your case.

wow. these fines are crazy. not sure what you could do, but i personally would try to go there in person with the old and new tickets and see if they would not go the full 9 yards. probably wont work, but at least i would have tried

My sympathies - I really hope some common sense from the authorities may prevail here for you. Stories such as this really make me wonder how Switzerland rates so highly in so called 'quality of life' and 'happiness' surveys - do these people not travel outside the Germanic sphere?

there isn't a day that goes by where I don't offer to sleep with Satan for the opportunity to live in a latin culture that isn't so friggin' tightly wound.

I think you will just have to sit, wait and expect to pay your fine. Fact is, while you were parked there you did not hold a parking permit, therefore you were parked illegally. You knew that your permit was invalid but you took the risk and got caught. You said you didnt realise that you had to apply for your permanent parking card, probably because you did not read the information provided to you.

All you can do is hope that the fine is not as high as what you have been told, but do not expect any leniency and unless you have Rechtschutzversicherung (legal insurance), do not waste your time trying to appeal in court

@tony
correct & totally agree, i was taking a risk there. but in my opinion at that time, that risk was managable. i allready paid for my regular parking permit and was just waiting for the card to come. the only information i received at the local office where i obtained the temporary parking permit was that i will automatically receive the final one from "strassenverkehrsamt", but they haven't told me that i therefore have to change the car papers first...
also, they could have used some discretion on their side:
1) conditional permit shows that i am a resident and that permanent parking permit should be on the way
2) temporary permit was not outdated for months, just got caught on the first 3 days, when waiting for the final one to come
3) they started recording my invalid parking on monday at 5:54, blue zone becomes free at 6:00 so they even started the first day for 6 (!) minutes....

I think the point you need to make clear to the authority is that even though your old permit expired on 5 May, you do have a valid new permit that begins on 6 May. In other words, you did not park there at any time illegally. Your mistake was that you did not have a valid permit displayed at the time you were parking, but since your new permit is actually valid from 6 May, the parking was not illegal. Best to make a copy of the new permit and let the authority know this and also let them know that even though the new permit is valid from 6 May, you did not actually receive this until later! You can perhaps photocopy the envelop showing a postmark after the 6 May (proof that you were sent this valid permit only much later). Hopefully this will change your fine to a failure to display permit one instead of parking illegally in blue zone.

In any event, do let us know what happens at the end.