S.L. from Suffolk County, Massachusetts writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
Hi! We bought a condo that included the parking spot in the deed. There are 12 units and all 12 deeds include the parking spot. But there is only room for 11 spaces. How does this get solved?
Mister Condo replies:
S.L., Hi! This is an unusual quandary because if all 12 units include a deeded parking space, I have to assume there was 12 spaces at one time. Was the parking lot reengineered or repainted to reduce the number of spaces to 11? If so, it should be returned to the 12 spaces that were originally there. Problem solved. I can’t imagine any owner willingly giving up his or her deeded parking space. If only some of the units include deeded parking (unusual but possible) then those units should have their spaces assigned and the balance of the spaces would be available to owners without deeded parking. Other than that, I can see numerous lawsuits arising from the lack of deeded parking. The question is who would you sue? The association is responsible for the current parking lot but previous owners may be at fault for providing deeded parking as part of the sale when it wasn’t theirs to sell. Good luck!