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I am a landlord and my tenant can’t park his car because another car has been abandoned in his spot. STRATA won;t touch it, Council won’t touch it but my agent says I should get it towed away, leave it somewhere and get Council to dispose of it. My agent points out that it is illegal to tow this car away but it is the most practical (but expensive) solution. I could handle this but I live 100 kilometres away!
SUGGESTIONS?
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Oh for pete’s sake …… just like for the left-overs contaminating the office fridge, just distribute notes to everyone stating that anything remaining in that after 24 hours will be tossed-out (or in this case dragged onto the common property)!
I’m still waiting for pmayes to tell us whether the parking space is common property (perhaps with exclusive use rights) or lot property.
And perhaps what vehicle it is.
There’s a big difference between food rotting in the refrigerator and say a 1970’s Ford Falcon GTHO worth over $100K and well worth covering with a tarpaulin.
Boronia is correct – the police cannot tell you the owner from the rego number (if there’s still a sticker on the window) or the VIN or the engine number. Privacy, you know.
And what does dragging the vehicle on to CP achieve? Just displaces the problem.
One element of democracy is that whatever “rights” you claim for yourself (such as the “right” to dump some unwanted object from your property onto someone else’s), those “rights” are granted to everyone. You couldn’t complain if the vehicle was dragged right back where it was observed to come from.
As the vehicle is more likely to belong to a resident than an owner (50% of residents are tenants), it would be more effective to put a notice in letterboxes or under doors than to write to owners, who may live say 100km away from their investment property. And the complainant can do that without EC/SM involvement.
I’m also sick of volunteer ECs being disparaged. Sure there are some cowboys out there, but the majority are doing a a reasonably good job of meeting their responsibilities under the Act, plus helping their neighbours (not a responsibility under the Act) for completely unselfish reasons. The selfish people are actually the owners who never volunteer for the EC, never attend meetings, and expect someone else to handle all the dramas.
Now I would like the pro-draggers to imagine they’re actually on an EC and suggest a solution for when the vehicle is dragged on to common property.
@Kangaroo said:
I’m also sick of volunteer ECs being disparaged … the majority are doing a a reasonably good job of meeting their responsibilities under the Act, plus helping their neighbours (not a responsibility under the Act) for completely unselfish reasons. The selfish people are actually the owners who never volunteer for the EC, never attend meetings, and expect someone else to handle all the dramas.I don’t disagree with the last part of your comment but the EC in this issue has decided to do nothing. Not our problem, they say. I would be the last person to disparage all ECs but I am sick of people who scramble to get on the EC to protect their own interests then whinge if anyone asks them to take some responsibility.
Of course that’s not all EC members – it may even be a minority – but we are talking about a particular building where the EC said, “not our problem … you are on your own, buddy.”
They have set the ground rules. Pmayes has been told to sort it out himself. So he can, in my view, change the game by moving the car on to common property and then quickly occupying the space with another vehicle.
I would not be saying this if the EC had said they would take even the most basic steps to find out who the owner is – which is a hell of a lot easier for them to do than it is for an individual.
But THIS EC has chosen to do nothing. And if that’s how they want to play it, let them understand that there are consequences to inaction, just as there are to wrong actions.
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pmayes
Another question for you … is your tenant a recent tenant who has been complaining about this since he first moved in … or did the vehicle suddenly appear in his parking space well into his tenancy?
If the former, is it at all possible that the vehicle belongs to your previous tenant who decided it wasn’t worth his while taking it with him?
JimmyT
All that pmayes has said so far is that “strata won’t touch it”, and I assumed by “it” he meant the vehicle. No reason has been stated to us for this position, and it is so far just another assumption that this means that they have “washed their hands of it” (meaning the whole matter). I can think of at least one scenario (as above) why this may be the case.
I think this case also highlights one dilemma of strata … if the parking space is common property, the OC has a legal duty to remove the vehicle … but they have no legal right to do so … and the Government has no intention of resolving the dilemma.
That means that OCs have an unenviable choice: comply with the first law by breaking the second, or break the first law by complying with the second.
As all EC/OC decisions have to be minuted, perhaps all the EC/OC means is that they would prefer that the tooth fairy attends to the matter overnight without any paper trail leading to them.
Our recommendation is to place a notice in The Age and The Herald Sun describing the vehicle in its location and stating that after 30 days it will be disposed of.