Parking Ticket
 

Ok so I was at my friends house on Wednesday. He lives in a townhome complex and I parked in the visitor parking. The sign makes no mention on how long you can park etc. My friend parks there too.

I leave his party with my friend, get to my car and find a parking tix on my car and none on his. I'm very confused, why did I get a $30 tix and he didn't, if we're side by side and parked at the same time?

So I ask my friend who lives at that townhouse, and he tells me to take it to John St, and to explain myself, that the ticket will be tossed because it happened to him. According to him, the townhome complex is private property, the ticket is not computerised, its written by hand, and that the visitor parking makes no mention of times. He said that his ticket was ripped up right then and there because the lady said they don't process those types of tickets.

So I go and try this, instead I ended up booking a court date instead...:( apparently I got a different lady...

Now I'm going to fight a $30 ticket, mostly on principle as opposed to cost. I also want to fight it because I originally tried to pay online and it didn't recognise the number furthering my suspicion that the ticket wasn't valid.

So since I've never done this before... What do I expect now? How do I argue my case and what should I look for when I go?

Thanks!

make your friend pay for the ticket and thats that.

Most townhouse complex corporations that I know of, including the one that I'm president of, do not allow residents to use the visitor lots for their own vehicles. Your buddy should have got a ticket too. In my condo corporation, any resident gets an automatic tow to the impound yard at their expense to accompany their third and subsequent tickets.

City bylaws usually stipulate clear parking signage and wording on those parking signs. Many corporations bar all parking between certain evening hours unless you have a visitor parking permit. You might want to go back and check the signs in the visitor parking areas and at the entrances to the condo complex.

The entrance to the complex states that its an unassumed road.. I would assume then, that the city cannot ticket since I'm taking a chance on a that road?

My friend that parked there was a visitor too. He parked beside me. The guy that owns the townhouse is the one that said that his ticket was ripped up.

Unassumed usually means that the local municipality has not assumed the responsibility for maintaining road, but you can still get traffic tickets on unassumed roads that are intended for unrestricted public use and which are going to be conveyed into public ownership once construction is complete.

That's different from private roads on private property. You generally can't get traffic tickets on private roads but the owner of that private road can designate fire routes and designated parking and no-parking areas as per local bylaws. If you violate those parking regs, you can be ticketed under municipal bylaws in most areas.

You will probbly never see that court date the courts are crazy backed up

I registered my vehicle through a townhouse complex's visitor parking system once and still got a ticket. Another time I went to move my car from a visitor parking because it was 1:55 am and parking was not allowed after 2:00 am but when I got to my car there was already a ticket on it!

The sad truth is that most people just pay their unfair parking tickets because often times the money they lose by paying the ticket is less than the money they'd lose by taking time off work. If you don't have a full-time job, or work on salary as opposed to wage, then you should definitely try to fight an unfair ticket. If you win let us know, it would be nice to hear a success story about this kind of thing once in a while.