Visitors come and go but parking is a strata problem that just won’t go away.
QUESTION: Can you please define what a ‘visitor’ is? We have someone living in one of our four units for most of the week and because he is not the tenant who signed up for the unit, the owners (travelling around Australia) say he is a visitor and therefore should be allowed to park in the designated visitors car park. Is this right? – milliesnan, via Flat Chat Forum
“This is definitely an issue that needs clarification,” says excathedra on the Forum. He reckons the ‘visitor’ has breached the spirit of the by-law, if not its letter. “When does a houseguest become a short-term resident? This has gone beyond the bounds of reasonableness, especially if the behaviour is repeated systematically week after week.”
Forum StrataGuru Struggler agrees: “Our SM told us that a car could park there for 24 hours then that is it, We tell our residents that the visitors car parks are for the temporary use of visitors and any long term visitors should park elsewhere.”
“We have had people house-sit for months. We would consider them a temporary resident, not a visitor. So far we have had no dramas with visitors using the car parks. If only we could say the same for residents.”
OK, this visitor and his mates are having a lend of you and the simplest way to resolve this is to define what a ‘visitor’ means yourselves – you house, your rules.
So introduce a rule or, even better, a by-law defining ‘visitor’ with regards to parking. A common definition is no more than six hours at a time on no more than two consecutive days – something like that. But you can choose anything that reflects the way your complex works.
Then hit the owner with a Notice To Comply and let them fight it in the CTTT – if they think they can get away with it – or face fines of up to $550.
Is free parking the latest form of ‘friends with benefits’? Read the whole discussion HERE.