Limiting Number of Cars Per Homeowner in Common Parking Spaces

Do your bylaws state owners must use the garage and driveway before utilizing the common parking spots? Is this renter not parking any vehicles in the garage or driveway? Then he is in violation of your bylaws and you need to go thru the owner to enforce the rules. You would need an amendment to limit the number of cars owned, but like limiting pets, this will get very emotional and sticky.

NL - The tenant has the right to use the common facilities just like any other owner. The tenant probably does not have the right to vote like owners do. Your complaint and fine (if any) however will need to be dealt with and levied strictly with the owner of the unit, not the tenant.

That said, explore the option of developing a rule and regulation that states cars must first be parked in the units garages and driveways prior to utilizing any unused parking space. Simultaneously, explore the option of creating an annual lottery that will assign the 18 non assigned parking spaces. These two options if developed as rules and put into effect simultaneously will help you solve all future parking issues. Look to your governing documents on how to achieve this.

Jadedone4 - My experience tells me that the tenant has all the rights vested with the owner, EXCEPT voting rights. In other words the tenant has the rights to use the common elements. Only NL's particular governing documents, or Virginia law can verify. If you can sight something to the contrary, I would like to learn of it. If the tenant in NL's association parked 1 car in 1 of the non-assigned parking stalls would there be a complaint? I doubt it. So at this time it seems to me the tenant does have the right to use the spots as does the owners. Additionally, how attractive is the community going to be to those that rent units if they are denied the owner's rights that they are technically paying for in rent? To be honest, I think I adequately addressed NL's post and believe if she, the Board and the community follow my suggestion they will have provided the paper trail to enforce the current parking situation.

The cars are all operalble, that would not be allowed for and is outlined in the HOA Documents.As far as the owner of the place the guy is a real deadbeat who takes the money and doesn't follow through on anything, the tenant doesn't have a copy of the documents and basically says I don't have to follow them since I was not made aware of them, yes the owner is responsible, we are sueing them now for violations and not paying HOA Dues. I asked if anyone had any experience on limiting the number of cars that a tenant/homeowner can occupy on common owned parking spaces. The owner hasn't paid his dues, so we plan on taking away all of the tenants parking privileges on the privately owned street in our community with is common area, the owner will be notified of what will be happening and how to correct the problem pay his bill we will cc the tenant so they are aware of it than turn it over to our tow company who makes daily sweeps of this area.

GeraldT4, unsure of NJ associations, but a tenant has NO rights in an association, unless prescribed and/or assigned them by the owner. The rights that you mention flow through the owner's membership in the association, period. A tenant is no more than a visitor to the community who only yields rights by and through the owner of record. A very important lineage to remember - the association's relationship is with the owner, not the tenant, and vice versa. The association only yields authority over a tenant when it comes to common areas/elements, if there are "other" issues, they must be addressed with the owner, and not the tenant.

Noelle here are a few methods in Virginia that you address parking...

a. (depending on county), there should be a local ordinanace/code which requires use of garages for the storage of vehicles, and not "other" items.

b. within thirty days any vehicle "regularly garaged in Virginia, must be registered with the Commonwealth's DMV" (this deals directly with the personal property tax code)

... from your governing documents, you can probably (all doc's are different so not assuming here) regulate use of commone areas/elements based on currency of dues. Example, if a person is late (as you have noted this owner is), you can limit access to gyms, lodges, pools, etc - you just need to have the authority and the enforcement protocols listed in your doc's.

... check your local (county) ordinance/code for the number of folks who can reside in a dwelling; if the owner has too many, you can address the issue on that front.

I am not a fan of a "lottery" system as all owner's should have access to the spaces on an equal basis. The reality is that in today's world some folks have more vehicles than they can actually house on their own property (garage/driveway). To be rather blunt/harsh, that is NOT the association's issue, but the owner's. It is a shame that associations are placed in the situation to correct owner's irresponsible behaviour, but that is often why they are elected in the first place. Good luck on your solution.

NL, FFxCty is one of the most (positive) aggressive counties in VA. Take a look at the FFxCty Consumer Protection site, they also have a dedicated HOA/COA/POA liaison. Also check out Channel 16 on Cox Communications, the FFxCty public access channel runs a show every 2-3 months called "your community, your call" if you can catch a live broadcast you can call in with questions.

AS former law enforcement officer, I can tell you that FFxCtyPD is dead on with regards to taking photos, there isn't much that you can do about that. Besides if everyone they are taking photos of is in compliance, more power to you guys, against the errant owner, right?

GeraldT4,

If NL's spaces are common elements/property, you simply make them visitor spaces, and require that the number of vehicles per household is limited to the number of spaces (garage/driveway) that the original site plan call for.

JadeOne.... thanks for you info..... since you are former law enforcement, in todays world where we have crooks, child molestors,etc. How does someone stop those people from taking picture of your house... since most likely they are up to no good. Wouldn't this almost border on harrassement.
You are right about the picture taking the guy taking the pics is the only one who is in violation of maintenance... our lawyer says great he is only going to dig his own grave... a year ago when all this started he requested pictures of the problems we were in disagreement about... we got some very good ones, he said he was in the process of fixing them.... thought he was going to sell and make big bucks but the bottom fell out of market and house set empty for 6 months.... so now he disagrees. Off to court we go.

NL - Welcome to my world. Over 30% of the homes in our community are rentals and several of these have 4 and 5 cars. Parking issues and zoning in Northern Virginia (Fairfax) townhome communities usually means that they allot 2.3 spaces per house and that includes the single garage and driveways. That's awful IMO. Yes we tried limiting parking by permits and that measure failed. The Bylaws say that that a petition with 10% of the owner signatures can mean that the community can call for a special vote and then when only the incensed residents actually vote on the issue, then the resolution is overturned. Realestate is scarce and eventually they might have to try the permit system again, but they would need to get "buy-in" from most of the residents before that go in this direction. Yes, usually the builder developers never address this issue and drop the whole hot potatoe in the lap of the board right after the community is turned over. It sure does not seem fair, but "Fair" is where they judge pies and pigs. You can try a permit system, but whenever you implement restrictions, remember that the new rules must be Easy to understand, Easy to implement, and Easy to enforce. Good luck.

One final thought - Remember that FFX has a zoning law that says that no more than 4 unrelated adults may live in one drelling. They don't like to enforce it (since it's difficult to enforce. I didn't know if these 5 cars belong to one family or more than 4 unrelated residents in this one dwelling.

NL - I take it that you're not really suing them, but you're assessing them under the VA Property Association Act (either $50 for one time incident or $10/day, up to 90 days for an ongoing issue). At 90 days, you should turn this over to collections attorney and file lien. Suspending parking privileges (if it's allowed as per your HOA docs), is a great way to get their attention. Although we find that even though you send them 5 letters (as well as placing towing warning on the vehicle), they will tend to ignore all correspondance as well as the physical warning placed on the car until such time that they walk outside and see that their car is missing. At that point, they will start a new dialogue with you.

Thanks Tim - Wow - missed that. Bella needs to start new thread.

It's seems that some of these threads should automatically archive themselves after 30 days of no activity.