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Reviewing my list of resident complaints, visitor parking abuse represents the majority of complaints. The remaining contenders are incense and smells from units, barking dogs and noisy neighbours. 

Look at any strata meeting in any residential strata scheme and visitor parking is a regular topic. So why do owners get so uptight when a cheeky resident abuses the visitor parking?

From my experience, the owners most upset and vigilante are owners that rarely have visitors needing to utilize the space. These owners are not inconvenienced and often see fit to take matters into their own hands which is never a good idea.

For Building Managers and Strata Managers, this topic is the bane of our existence because in reality, there is not a lot we can legally do about it easily.

Against popular belief, a building manager cannot clamp a car tyre or tow a car out into the street. A car parked in an owner’s lot needs to be dealt with by that lot owner. Yes, we can all write to the resident providing warnings with the threat of NCAT, in the end a person willing to continue to abuse the parking doesn’t care about your rules until everyone knows who it is.

Who are the main offenders

Usually, a lot with more residents owning cars than parking spaces are the usual offenders, luckily, these are the easiest to deal with as an owner generally wont buy a lot with one parking space if they need two, it would usually be a tenant with an agent to hound until they get sick of the tenants.

The other usual offender is when an owner begins a relationship and the partner becomes a regular overnight visitor. Unfortunately for the Strata Scheme, this is perfectly acceptable, if the partner’s address is not fixed to your strata scheme, they are considered a visitor by legal definition. 

So what does work…

Right or wrong, I have found name and shame to be the most useful and effective tactic previously. Large posters with a picture of the car parked illegally showing the registration posted everywhere advising of this residents actions are in breach of the conditions yields the best long term results and compliance.

So what does not work…

Building managers should be wary of strata committee members wanting copies of a notice on the building managers letterhead. This often results in a power trip and a rouge committee member leaving messages with anonymity as it is on your letterhead. This can become harder to deal with than the illegal parking. 

With vigilante behaviour almost resembling bullying behaviour by owners monitoring visitor car parking and offenders of visitor parking not overly concerned about their actions, this becomes an explosive situation which is not ideal, in the end we all have to live together and get along.