On the Bruxner Highway, just before the Pineapple Road/Oliver Avenue roundabout, many people would park their cars on the left-hand side of the highway and put on For Sale signage with a contact number.

It appeared to be common practice, as regularly there were two, three or four cars to be sold at any given time.

Seller Beware! That is not the case anymore, as Lismore City Council has been monitoring the practice and is now issuing parking fines.

Local Lismore resident Lindy was not aware that the practice was an offence, and received a $320 fine for stopping on a path/strip in a built-up area, offence 82918, when she was trying to sell her car in June.

Lindy has been a resident of Lismore for 12 years, has observed the cars for sale regularly at that spot, and made the assumption that council turned a blind eye to the practice. Lindy was wrong.

"I have challenged the fine, where I was told that I would be contacted within 42 days regarding this matter. 15 days later & I have received a final notice saying if it's not paid, an additional $65 will be incurred," Lindy explained.

"They didn't even acknowledge that they'd received a review."

The review process was not through Lismore City Council, but through a 1300 number listed on the parking fine, where a person guided Lindy through the fine review process.

"Then I went into the RTA, who said, Oh, well, look, you do have 28 days in which to pay this. Why don't you wait for a bit and see if they get back to you about the review within the 42 days, as they've stated. I still haven't heard anything."

As you can gather from Lindy's story so far, she is not going to pay the fine. She will fight it to the end.

"Look, I'm waiting to hear what comes back to me within the 42 days, but I'm quite prepared to go to court and just say I'm sorry. This just doesn't seem fair.

"I'm not challenging why they don't allow it anymore. I'm challenging the fact that it had been common practice for, I don't know, at least 10 years. And, it seemed like a good community service. Everybody that wanted to buy a car locally, knew that you could look there, and lo and behold, there generally would be four or five cars there.

There was another car parked and for sale at the same time as Lindy's; however, she is not aware if the owner was fined.

A Lismore City Council spokesperson told the Lismore App, "It’s an offence to park on a nature strip. These vehicles damage the nature strip and cause a distraction to traffic on the approach to a very busy roundabout. 

"We request people remove their vehicles to prevent infringements being issued."

For Lindy, that is not the point.

"The fact is that they decided, obviously, to change the use of that area where they'd always tolerated it in previous times and not alert anybody to the change of usage. That's my sort of thinking. It is not terribly fair. "

Lindy said she would have liked council to erect a sign to notify potential sellers that they will be fined. For the rest of Lismore who were thinking of selling their car on a nature strip in the Lismore LGA, beware that it could result in a $320 fine.