When you have a visitor to your home who needs to park their car in West End, Highgate Hill and surrounds, you’ll need to know the law.

There are parking restrictions for each area: West End, Hill End, Highgate Hill, Kangaroo Point, Woolloongabba and Dutton Park. See: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/transport-and-parking/parking/traffic-and-parking-permit-areas

If you live in a metered area, your visitor will have to pay either at the meter or via the CellOPark app. They pay via their debit/credit card. It’ll help if you set an alarm so they remember to get back to the car and move it in time, or add to the meter. Fines start at $125 plus penalty units. https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/transport-and-parking/parking/parking-tickets-and-fines

Each area has different rules. All are signed, but in a way easy to ignore if you have your eye on the road (see main photo at Gladstone Road, HIGHGATE HILL).

To avoid much of this drama and cost, each household in a building built before 2015, may obtain a resident parking permit and up to two visitor parking permits by completing an online application.

Note: If you live in highrise on Montagu Road or in Kangaroo Point in a building opened 2015 or later, sorry, no parking permit for you. I did say the rules differ within the Westender area.

Assuming you’re eligible, go to  https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/transport-and-parking/parking/parking-permits. Click on

You’ll need your BCC log in details: email and password, or, if you don’t yet have one, to create an account.

Then get your rates notice and another bill showing you live at your address. Plus, for a resident permit, your vehicle’s registration certificate. You can get this online through the Department of Transport and Main Roads. https://www.service.transport.qld.gov.au/getregistrationcertificate/public/Welcome.

Scan and upload all documents during the application process. Be patient, as the system sometimes ignores your scan. Persist.

You name your street, and two surrounding streets in which you and your visitors are likely to park.

Visitor Permits are valid for 12 months and linked to the vehicle’s registration plate, either yours or your visitor’s. BCC vehicles drive past and scan the number plates.

Each time a visitor wants to stay for more than two hours, you add their number plate to your permit on the BCC website. Again, you’ll need to logon to your BCC account, and go to your online permit and update the vehicle number plate.

Thankfully, the system now stores the number plates of previous visitors, and as long as you remember who belongs to which car, it is relatively painless. That’s how you transfer the permit between visitors.

There is fee of $18.10 for the permit (per year). A pensioner discount of 50% applies. If you need the residential permit and two visitor parking permits, the maximum you’ll pay, per year, is $48.35.

Done by Law is the nome de plume  of a West End Resident