One of our clients is having problems with a lot owner parking on the common property. Most by-laws permit such parking subject to permission (with a stated end date) being given by the Body Corporate upon the applicant writing to the Committee with a valid reason. The Committee are required to consider the application and make reasonable decisions.
However, it is important to distinguish between visitor parking allocations and other parking areas on the common property because different by-laws usually impact. The by-laws usually give no discretion for parking by lot owners or tenants on the commmon property in areas allocated to visitor parking.
In the case of our client, this distinction had not been recognised and there were no car parking signs in place on the common property. Reference to the local council development approval conditions may
be required. The records may need to be requested from council if not readily available. In the case of the client, it was stated that two visitor car spaces were a condition of development approval and since the common property had enough space for just two car parks, it was clear that the car spaces were for visitor parking. The final step was to inform all lot owners and tenants that the car spaces were visitor car spaces and to have signs made to indicate this on the property. Once everyone is
informed, and if the parking by-law continue to be broken, then a contravention notice can be issued.
Read a typical BCCM Adjudication case outcome where the adjudicator identified this very same issue.