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Hi, I’m an owner occupier of a unit in a complex of 9. Each unit has a double garage and there are 2 car spaces available for use of residents on a first in basis. One owner occupier appears to be renting out rooms as various ‘tenants/boarders/lodgers’ have come and gone in the 12mths since I’ve been here. One of these lodgers is causing problems with parking of which the owner has been made aware. If there is no RTA in place what rights do these lodgers have to the parking spaces or anything else in the complex? (not for publication)
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On the assumption that your complex is in NSW, I’m surprised that it has two unallocated carspaces available to residents on any basis let alone “first in”.
Are you sure that those carspaces weren’t originally designated for visitors?
Because if that’s the case, the provision of those would have been a Condition of the Development Consent for your complex, and your Owners Corporation cannot circumvent that except on a short-term / special needs basis.
As for the rights of residents in your complex whose occupancy isn’t covered by a Residential Tenancy Agreement, I’m afraid that their rights so far as Strata is concerned is the same as those of any other resident, but so are their obligations to comply with the By-Laws of the complex.
So in my opinion your first action should be to ascertain the original purpose of the common carspaces (the Strata Title Plan should show that), by what means those were made available for resident parking (e.g. a decision at an AGM), and whether on the basis that it may well be contrary to the approved DA and that it’s proving to be problematic, that availability should be rescinded.
If these people are residents of the complex they have exactly the same rights as all other residents. If the parking is specified as residents parking (as opposed to visitor parking) they can use it as much as they like.
One solution would be to pass a bylaw limiting residents parking to 2 hours per day but it would have to apply to all residents.
@shelley said:
The parking spaces were originally designated visitor spaces however that was changed at the AGM.And there’s your problem. As Whale explained, if those spaces were designated for visitors under your Development Approval, then your building is in breach of its DA. A call to your local council planning department could fix this immediately. Your Owners Corp can’t pass by-laws that contravene superior laws (like planning regulations). Once the spaces are re-designated visitors parking, then you can move people on.
By the way, your Owners Corp can still define what a visitor is, in terms of the length of time they are allowed to park there. But they can’t just open them up to general use for owners.
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I agree with the others if the parking was defined as visitor parking in the DA it still is visitor parking and so you need to inform ALL residents of the fact and get the bylaw allowing residents to park their removed.
You can tell residents to stop using it immediately (rather than after the bylaw is repealed) as it is invalid and residents parking their can be issued with a NTC based on the original bylaw.