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Doing a bit of digging into the saga of the abandoned car, mentioned here , based on this story in the SMH, we dug around and found that, yet again strata legislation that looks fine in print, just doesn’t work in real life.
The law says that OCs can move cars off common property if they put sufficient warning notices on vehicles that aren’t supposed to be there.
However, where do they move the cars to? In this particular case, the owners corp has received legal advice that they can’t just move the car on to a parking space on the street, as they could become liable for fines incurred there.
And they can’t find a tow-truck firm prepared to move the car to the nearest vacant, unrestricted spot or holding yard as they towies are worried about who pays if the car gets damaged.
If they pursue the owner of the car for costs, they could end up spending more than they’ll get back from the courts. It’s a mess that, it seems, no one is concerned about fixing.
Meanwhile the bright new day of councils patrolling strata car parking, that was supposed to be brought in on the back of new legislation, has turned out to me another false dawn.
According to my strata manager sources, few if any councils have shown any interest in pursuing it (Lane Cove being the sole exception).
We are now 18 months into the new laws Matt Kean, Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation (and Fair Trading), needs to launch an urgent review into which strata laws are working and which are causing more problems than they are solving.
It’s not just parking that’s a problem as, yet again, apartment owners are left to work things out for themselves and take ‘informal’ action to fill the gaps in inadequate laws.
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Hi JT – Could an interim order be sought by the OC if the Notice on the vehicle does not work?
Another avenue to try …. Is the vehicle still registered? Wouldn’t the Police or the NSW RTA have an address or contact details of the abandoned vehicle via their registration?
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/roads/registration/abandoned-vehicles.html
We have an habitual resident parker in our block’s visitors’ area. She ignores warning notices. Her “logic” is that her boyfriend is the occupant (tenant) of the building and she is entitled to “visit” him all night, seven days a week. Unfortunately, our By-laws do not define limitations on visitor parking.
@JimmyT said:
I also believe that the council and police won’t touch cars abandoned on common property as it is technically private property.We had a situation where a vehicle was parked on common property. I live quite close to the local police station, so I went over and asked them if they could give me details of the registered owner. Turned out to be one of their regular visitors, who had been detained in a cell and was going to be there for an “undertemined period of time”. The police suggested we arrange for the car to be towed and parked in the street (somewhere legal, of course). The officer said “might teach the guy a lesson about where he parks his car”.
A video of the car being towed to an appropriate alternate spot would be proof that all care was taken and no damage done?
Not sure about police not acting on Common Property. In our ACT Complex we reported a car that had been parked for a few weeks, an the police came with flatbed truck and towed it away.
They were interested as the plates on the 4WD showed as being for a Holden Astra when checked on the rego online system – so either the plates or the car were probably stolen.