In the city of Salzgitter, as in many other German municipalities, private supermarket operators or other companies are increasingly using private parking lot operators or contracted service providers for their customer parking lots, who monitor the applicable parking conditions (e.g. maximum parking duration or parking disc requirement). In the event of violations, civil law claims are asserted in the form of "increased parking charges".

These are expressly not warnings or fines imposed by the city of Salzgitter, but private contractual penalties over which the city has no influence. The provisions of the German Civil Code (BGB) apply. The introduction of private customer parking management does not require notification or approval. The legal requirements of the Road Traffic Act apply to the transmission of holder data by the competent authority.

The only civil law requirement for private parking space management is that the respective parking conditions must be indicated with signage on the premises.

If citizens are affected by such a contractual penalty and question its legality, they should contact the parking lot operator or the contracted service provider or must take private legal action against the claim.