Question: We have 8 units, with 2 carports. Residents are parking their cars on the shared driveway. Shouldn’t the driveway be kept clear to allow access to the vehicles that are parked in the carports & for any vehicles that might be making deliveries to any of the 8 units?
Answer: Parking anywhere on or obstructing the common property is likely prohibited by the by-laws applicable to your scheme unless the Owners Corporation has given express approval. The parking on common property without approval and obstructing other resident’s vehicles may constitute nuisance.
This post appears in the February 2021 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
Leanne Habib
Premium Strata
E: info@premiumstrata.com.au
P: 02 9281 6440
without reg 34 or s 125, what avenues of reress for owners who have visitors park in their carspot are accessible?
Hi g
Take a look at this post with some possible solutions:
What is the best way to solve resident parking problems in an apartment building?
Good luck!
How can you guys say that this page has been updated as recently as July 2020 without mentioning that Clause 34 of the Strata Schemes Management Regulation 2016 has been repealed? Also, a number of links in this article lead to dead pages.
What law now governs the towing of motor vehicles?
Thanks.
Leanne Habib from Premium Strata Pty Ltd has replied to this question in the article above.
I have a car in my under building car space , the car is not registered but it is clean and tidy , and doesn’t look out of place . I don’t drive the car but I want to keep it , it is not dangerous or not keeping within the look of the building other cars .. it’s within my car space . The strata committee have made a new bylaw they have the power to tie it away and threaten to do so . Can they do this .
Hi Leslie
Please see the question above: Question: I have an unregistered vehicle in my designated parking space. My neighbour has threatened to tow the vehicle. Can my car be towed?
STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT REGULATION 2016 – REG 34 Removal of motor vehicles: section 125 of Act
(1) This clause applies to a motor vehicle left on common property that is placed so that it blocks an exit or entrance or otherwise obstructs the use of common property.
(2) The owners corporation may take action under this clause if the owners corporation has placed a removal notice on or near the motor vehicle and the requirements of the notice are not complied with within the period specified in the removal notice.
(3) A removal notice must:
The interest here is the language used by the Parliament.
We have ‘may’ which is a discretionary term, then we have the combination of the ‘may’ with an ‘if’ which I will not interpret because that is for the courts.
The most interesting part is the ‘must’ of (3).
‘Must’ appears over 250 times in the Act. It can mean the OC has an inescapable obligation to act, an imperative, such as the must of s 106 which is the section about maintenance and repairs but then ‘must’ can also be simply a procedural term in which case non compliance with the ‘must’ leads to no real consequence. Such as the ‘musts’ found in section 1 of the Act that related to general meeting procedures (see Sher Global case for a good example).
The ‘must’ of Reg 34 (3) appears to be very much the same type of ‘must’ as the ones in Sher Global and if that is the case then there is nothing invalid about an action taken without complying with that ‘must’.
Someone needs to tow a vehicle without meeting with the ‘requirements’ of the notice and see what the courts (or Tribunal) have to say.
The real fun of the SSM Act and ‘must’ is you can’t know what a particular ’must’ means until after the case.
Good one Parliament!
A simple valve stem remover will fix intermittent parking.
We received the following question via email from a NSW Strata Professional after they read this post:
Is it enforceable to tow if there is no bylaw?
Leanne Habib, Premium Strata provided the following response:
Yes, vehicles may be towed from the common property. (Note that even if there is a by-law, such by-law may be unlawful).
Removal of offending motor vehicles is now governed by the STRATA SCHEMES MANAGEMENT REGULATION 2016 – REG 34 Removal of motor vehicles: section 125 of Act. This is the only lawful manner in which to remove motor vehicles in certain circumstances and the process must be adhered to strictly. Note that this section does not extend to vehicles parked in private car spaces.
34 REMOVAL OF MOTOR VEHICLES: SECTION 125 OF ACT
(1) This clause applies to a motor vehicle left on common property that is placed so that it blocks an exit or entrance or otherwise obstructs the use of common property.
(2) The owners corporation may take action under this clause if the owners corporation has placed a removal notice on or near the motor vehicle and the requirements of the notice are not complied with within the period specified in the removal notice.
(3) A removal notice must:
(a) not be less than the size of an A4 piece of paper, and
(b) be placed in a position or be in a material so that the contents of the notice are not likely to be detrimentally affected by weather, and
(c) describe the motor vehicle and state the date and time the notice was issued, and
(d) state that the motor vehicle will be removed if it is not moved from the common property or so that it no longer obstructs common property before the date and time specified in the notice (being not earlier than 5 days after the notice was placed on or near the motor vehicle), and
(e) specify contact details for a member of the strata committee, the strata managing agent or a delegate of the owners corporation in relation to the notice.
(4) The owners corporation may cause a motor vehicle to be moved to another place on common property or to the nearest place to which it may be lawfully moved, or moved so that it no longer blocks an exit or entrance or otherwise obstructs the use of common property, and for that purpose the owners corporation is taken to be the owner of the motor vehicle
(5) The Tribunal may, on application by the owners corporation, order that the owner of a motor vehicle moved to another place under this clause, pay to the owners corporation the reasonable costs incurred by the owners corporation in moving the motor vehicle .
(6) In this clause:
“motor vehicle” has the same meaning as in the Impounding Act 1993.