Parking is a contentious issue throughout strata, exacerbated by the fact that you can’t clamp rogue parkers and you can’t have them towed away … except in Queensland.

The law in NSW changed in 2016 to allow you to stick an enforceable “move it or lose it” poster on a vehicle parked on common property without permission – and then it was changed back, so the southern states still forbid you from towing or clamping illegally parked vehicles.

One of the most common complaints is owners and tenants who have more cars than they have parking spaces using visitor parking or driveways.

And then there are those who use thair garages as storage – or games rooms or extensions of their living quarters – then use visitor parking for their own purposes.

Or there are those semi-permanent residents – boyfriends, girlfrieds and family members – who use the fact that they aren’t residents to argue that they are visitors.

What can you do? It would help greatly if you had a by-law that defined who could use visitor parking and for how long.  

Maybe two hours max during the day and overnighters can’t park before, say, 7 pm and must be out by 8 am.

It’s the OC’s common property so you can set your rules via by-laws and issue Notices to Comply and fines for those who break them.

That way you can prove when overstayers aren’t bona fide visitors and are therefore misusing common property.