Ask an expert


Julied

Hi, I live in central Auckland in an apartment and we have off-road parking down a driveway which is shared with a couple of businesses. We got a ticket for our rego being expired

Our "driveway" is classified as a "service lane" according to the ticket - but it looks like any typical driveway (e.g. to a normal house or supermarket carpark).

I'm wondering what is the council's jurisdiction when it comes to parking tickets...
What exactly is a "service lane"?
And can you get a parking infringement if you were parked in a supermarket carpark without a current rego (for example)?

Thanks
Julie

ABayliss

When you say "parking ticket" do you mean you had a ticket for parking illegally as well as one for expired registration?
You don't say who owns the driveway/service lane. Obviously, if it's your own privately owned driveway (or shared ownership between you and your neighbours), it would seem unlikely that the council have any juristiction over who parks there, or whether the vehicle has rego or not.
However, reading between the lines, it sounds more like this is a public service lane / accessway. If that's the case, your vehicle needs to meet the same requirements it would if it was parked on a public road, so would need to be registered.
If you were also issued with a parking ticket, this would indicate that the vehicle was parked illegally. Again, if it is your own private driveway the council would not have any juristiction, but yet again, it would seem more likely that the location is designated a public place.
So, to summarise, in both cases, the council has juristiction if you were parked in a public place but not if you were parked on your own driveway.
Generally speaking, the infringement notice will have details of how you can challenge the ticket if you believe you have been incorrectly ticketed.