If only the penalties were enough to stop owners abusing the visitors car spots. Our tenants generally pull their heads in when given a little reminder. It’s the owners who think they are above the “law” (with some owners believing that by laws are only for tenants and not for owners!).
We always say in our reminder notes that parking in the visitors car spots is only allowed with the written permission of the OC. We do believe that there are very valid reasons for parking in the visitors parking. Should a unit have to have repairs done by the OC and this resident needs to move furniture and belongings into their locked garage for a time, then this would be a reason for parking in the visitors car spots. We have also held the view that those moving in and out of a unit should be allowed to park there during the couple of days it takes to sort things out (we have all been there, what a pain it is to move, packing boxes everywhere, stuff sorted in the garage etc). And I could think of other valid reasons that a resident would need and would be granted permission to park.
The problem is, they want to park when they want to and for whatever reason. Whether they have more cars than garages, want to use their garage for some other reason (storage etc), or they want to hang their washing in there on a rainy day so want to park in visitors spots while it dries. And if it were allowed, every single one of use would use the visitors car spots (there is one visitors spot for every 5 units). Even I would want to use one if I could.
We notify the parking offenders that they are not only parking in visitors car parks (one by law), they are stopping an area of common property from being used as intended (as visitors car parking – another by law) and as the car parks are infact grass, that is parking on a lawn or garden, and this causes damage to common property (thats another couple of by laws there).
When we last had an uprising in this complex, where some owners wanted there to be a change to allow parking in the visitors car parks, the EC suggested that it would only be fair to ask those who had been in the complex since year dot to have first “dibs” on the visitors car parks. There was a shriek of horror from the few who suggested this as they had only moved in recently. They wanted the extra car parking, but they didn’t want anyone else to have it. So it wasn’t changed.