- This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 4 months ago by .
-
Topic
-
I need help! I live in a townhouse complex and after 14 years, Strata turns up and claims that what I thought was my driveway all this time is actually visitor parking and put up a ‘Visitor parking only’ sign.
It makes absolutely no sense to me because you physically need to drive into my driveway to get to this ‘Vistor parking’. I need help figuring out whether this is true, a huge mistake or some weird fraud by strata.
Apparently the committee met up and decided there wasn’t enough parking in the complex?!
-
Replies
-
Start by obtaining a copy of the strata plan. You can get it on-line from LPI agents. Your solicitor might have one already although it’s probably in storage somewhere.
The strata plan is authoritative on where your allocated parking is. And implicitly the committee can’t cut off access to your parking.
Do you have your own carport/garage? If you do and a visitor parking, I am guessing, along the side of this driveway would not block access to your allocated parking space(s), then it would seem this is a wide driveway. If the strata plan shows this is common property then it seems that it might not be unreasonable for the Owners Corporation to decide to explicitly mark this as a place where a visitor may park. Perhaps it was not obvious to visitors that such places along the roadways within the complex were places that visitors could park in and this might have let to a perception that parking was insufficient.
Start by obtaining a copy of the strata plan. You can get it on-line from LPI agents. Your solicitor might have one already although it’s probably in storage somewhere.
The strata plan is authoritative on where your allocated parking is. And implicitly the committee can’t cut off access to your parking.
Agreed. The answer to your question is in the strata plan. A strata plan shows the boundaries of your lot. Everything outside your lot is either someone else’s lot or common property.
Your strata plan will indicate whether the space you use to park your car is actually common property. If it is common property, you will have to get permission from the owners corporation to park your car there. I know it sounds stupid if you have been parking directly in front of your townhouse for years … that’s why you need to check the strata plan and read your by-laws carefully.
I live in a block of townhouses where the strata plan says that my lot comprises the inside of the townhouse and a rear courtyard. All land in front of the townhouse is common property. Even the driveway leading up to the townhouse is common property. The space in front of my townhouse could accommodate a car but that space is common property. We organised for the owners corporation to grant permission to park a car on common property.