Question: Many owners in our large complex park in visitor parking from time to time. The committee has never really enforced parking rules, but have recently engaged a company to enforce parking. Is this permitted?
In our 110 unit complex, the committee has never taken action to enforce the onsite car parking rules, apart from the occasional newsletter.
Many owners and occupiers use the visitor car parks from time to time. Most residents do not mind. I have not seen anything in Body Corporate minutes regarding enforcement but now they have decided to allow an outside company to enforce parking in the carpark. Is this permitted?
This is not a commercial car park, and the outside company have no legal right to issue fines. As owners, where do we stand?
Answer: The committee is responsible for enforcing the by-laws in relation to parking and they can’t delegate that responsibility.
It’s not entirely clear from your query what’s occurred, but it seems as though an outside contractor has been engaged to regulate parking. Your first step is to find out the terms of that – are there any minutes about it or do you recall being asked to vote on the concept (if you’re an owner)? There may be several actions which follow depending on what has occurred there. For example, there are restrictions on what the committee can and can’t do in relation to deciding upon proposals and use of common property. It would also depend on the terms of the contract with the contractor.
Putting that to one side, it’s almost irrelevant whether or not the contractor is there because at the end of the day, it remains the committee’s responsibility to enforce the by-laws in relation to parking and they can’t delegate out that responsibility. Your query doesn’t actually say what the by-laws are but it seems as though there’s been a bit of a casual approach to parking up to now. You need to lay your hands on the by-laws, if you don’t have a copy then you can obtain them from the Titles Office. If you’re an owner then you can propose changes to the by-laws at a general meeting. If you are wanting by-laws about parking to be enforced, you can go through the process of having the body corporate (via the committee) to do that or, if the body corporate won’t, you can pursue that yourself through dispute resolution through the Commissioner’s Office.
If you’ve got designated visitor car parks then owners and occupiers shouldn’t be using those, regardless of whether everyone is ok with that. It may be a breach of the conditions of development of the building and lead to issues with the local council.
This post appears in the October 2022 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Chris Irons Strata Solve E: chris@stratasolve.com.au P: 0419 805 898