Someone Is In My Car Park
BY: RICK DEERING, VICTORIAN GENERAL MANAGER
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One of the most frustrating aspects of living in an apartment building is returning home one evening to find another vehicle in your parking space. Whilst parking bollards can give some security, they can be inconvenient and they are not inexpensive to install. Of equal frustration to residents is when someone has parked in a driveway or no standing zone creating not only inconvenience but a safety hazard as well.
So, what can one do? In Victoria (as in many other states) there is no right to clamp the wheels of a vehicle unlawfully parked on your property or otherwise arrange to have it towed away. It is usually just a matter of waiting for the offending vehicle to vacate whilst finding somewhere else to park in the meantime.
Not satisfied with this the SSKB Victoria team went in search for a solution and came across a service that goes a long way to eliminating the problem.
The Owners Corporation at one of our larger Melbourne properties approved the appointment of a private car park operator to provide a service that ensures that car parks are only occupied by their legitimate owner. The service works like this. Each owner was given a car park pass to display in the windscreen of their car. Each pass was numbered to correspond with the number of the car park.
Then on a regular basis, two to three times a day, the car park operator patrols the car park and issues a Payment Notice to any car that does not have a windscreen pass with the number corresponding to the car space they are in.
This Payment Notice is ostensibly a penalty for non adherence to the Owners Corporation Rules. Signs are clearly displayed at all entrances to the car park to advise motorists of the need to have the correct car park pass displayed in their car and to warn them that Payment Notices will be issued for non compliance.
In addition the car park operator will issue a Payment Notice to any cars parked on Common Property which had been another issue for the owners.
Another benefit of the service is that it comes at little cost to the Owners Corporation. The car park operator takes the income received from the Payment Notices as their income for providing the service. The Owners Corporation only has to pay for the windscreen passes.
How successful is the service? It is not 100% and we still get times when a car is unlawfully parked where it shouldn't. Whilst the car will be issued with a Payment Notice, the inconvenience to the legitimate owner has already occurred. However the incidence of unlawfully parked cars had reduced by over 90% which is a relief to lot owners not to mention the SSKB team who had to regularly placate aggrieved owners.
