To think flatmate should pay for the parking space?

[kingboo]

I live in a flat shared between four people. It's in a very expensive inner city area, where parking comes at a huge premium.
The rent for the rooms in the flat are split based on the size of the rooms, on a fair formula. There is one parking place in an underground garage that comes with the property. Several of our neighbours rent their spaces out for decent amounts of money.

A flatmate just moved out, who used to use the parking space on weekends if their partner came to visit. It was understood though that if someone else had a guest, that they would take priority. So we tried to make it fair, so everyone got to use the parking spot for friends/visitors.

The new flatmate who moved in has a car and now uses the spot full time. Whilst this is fine because none of us other three flatmates have cars/need it constantly, I can't help but think that their rent should be a bit higher. Obviously not the £100 a month which is the going rate for a space, but say maybe £50, which could go towards our shared bills.

AIBU/

YANBU it's £15 a day for a guest pass for the car park where I live.

Anyone else feel a little sorry for new flatmate, for this animosity towards her, when she hasn’t actually done anything wrong? Doesn’t bode well for happy flatsharing.

Surely you all have use of the space on a "first come, first served" basis.

Since she's the only one with a car, she's always "first come".

If, however, you or other flatmates had visitors that arrived while the space is empty, then they could park in the space, and she'd have to park elsewhere.

In future, you could advertise the room, plus exclusive use of the space at a higher cost. But for this tenant, I think it would be unreasonable to charge her extra for an included facility that you and another tenant choose not to use.

If no one has a car and you rented out the space for £100 it would reduce the rent by £25 for each of the flatmates. So I think it's reasonable to charge if one person has exclusive use. £3 a day is a reasonable charge. I pay this for a couple of hours parking in Truro in those heady days when we could go shopping.

I find some of these responses really odd. If one person has a car and uses the only parking space full time, then of course she should pay extra for that benefit! It’s totally different to nobody having a car and everyone together using for guests on a first come first served or rota basis. Unless she is totally clear that if anybody else has a need for the space at any time she needs to find somewhere else to park (unlikely in London) then she should pay for the space.

But, it should have been agreed before her rent was agreed, unless she never mentioned the car and has just turned up with one and parked it without agreement. If that is what she has done, somebody should just clarify with her whether (a) she expects sole use, in which case she must pay, or (b) she is happy to share, in which case she will need to move whenever anybody else has a need for it.

YANBU BUT you needed to have sorted out a proper system.

Either one person pays for the parking space and it is fully theirs, in which case the full amount reflected in the rent is fair. Or a system in which everyone had a call on it for guests but pays pro rata.