NSW: Can a Disabled Parking Space Be Locked for Exclusive Use in Strata?

This article discusses locked disabled parking strata, including whether common property disability spaces can be locked for exclusive use and what approvals are required.

Question: Our building’s 1 disabled parking spot has a locked bollard. The key has been given to a disabled tenant even though her unit comes with a parking space. Are strata allowed to do this?

We have 1 disabled parking spot in our building.

The spot has had a keyed bollard put in it and the key has been given to a disabled tenant even though she has her own parking space. This is effectively stopping any disabled visitors from being able to use the disabled spot.

What are the disabled parking rules? Are strata allowed to do this?

Answer: It is not possible for someone to simply put a bollard in a common property visitor parking spot.

Your question raises matters which are often not dealt with correctly in the strata context. I think it would be helpful for me to briefly address them, in turn, :

• Dealing with common property – it is not possible for someone to simply put a bollard in a common property visitor parking spot. Such a dealing with common property would need to be the subject of a special resolution passed at a general meeting of the owners corporation. If that has not happened, then this action is open to being challenged in NCAT;
• The nature of the arrangement between the owners corporation and the tenant – this also needs to have been properly done, and the absence of such an arrangement could also be the subject of an NCAT challenge.

Having said that, the recent decision of the Tribunal which I referred to in my article, “opens the door” to the possibility that owners corporations may need to consider how they deal with disabled occupants, and it may be that the owners corporation to which you have referred has found that this is the easiest way of dealing with the matter on a temporary basis and in the absence of complaint by other lot owners.

I am happy to discuss this matter in further detail if that is of assistance.

This post appears in Strata News #465.

Warwick van Ede
JS Mueller & Co Lawyers
E. warwickvanede@muellers.com.au
P: 02 9562 1266