For nearly a month now, the management board of the HH Linh Dam apartment building in Hoang Mai district has had to move hundreds of unclaimed motorbikes and bicycles from the basement to the yard between the buildings.

"We don't collect parking fees and also waste space and security guards. Not to mention hundreds of cars parked in the yard between buildings also cause unsightliness," said Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong, the management board of HH Linh Dam apartment building, adding that there is currently no way to deal with the number of unclaimed cars.

HH Linh Dam urban area has 12 buildings with about 36,000 residents, while there are only 16,000 motorbike parking spaces in 4 basements. The parking space is cramped, there is a high risk of fire and explosion due to vehicles not being used for a long time, the Management Board has issued a notice calling on residents to donate their unused vehicles to relatives or children in the highlands. However, after a month, no one has claimed the vehicles.

Mr. Phuong said that residents pay a monthly parking fee of 80,000 VND, while visitors use daily tickets and pay 5,000 VND per trip. However, the data system does not store information on the time vehicles enter and exit the tunnel, or if it does, it expires 1-2 years later. Therefore, the management board does not know the exact origin of the vehicles "forgotten" in the tunnel for many years.

Mr. Nguyen Tat Thang, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Hoang Liet Ward, Hoang Mai District, said that the ward has sent people to coordinate with the Management Board of HH Linh Dam Apartment to handle the number of ownerless vehicles. "In the case of vehicles with owners, the ward will contact the owner to request them to be returned, while ownerless vehicles will be handed over to the police for handling," Mr. Thang said, adding that the situation of ownerless vehicles also occurs in many other apartment buildings in the area such as Osaka Complex, Bac Linh Dam urban area, but the number is smaller.

Lawyer Vu Tien Vinh, Bao An Law Firm, analyzed that when parking a vehicle, the vehicle owner and the parking attendant have established a property custody contract. Therefore, the parties must implement and comply with the provisions of the law on property custody.

However, usually the parties do not have an agreement on the time limit for keeping the property and of course there is no agreement on how to handle the situation if the depositor does not come to receive the property after the deadline.

"Therefore, there is no basis to determine the contract performance period as well as the situations in which the parking lot owner can perform according to the agreement," the lawyer said, arguing that the law lacks regulations for the above situation.

In case the recipient arbitrarily disposes of the property in any form such as liquidation, auction, donation... it can be considered a violation of the law and will face a dispute when the sender comes to receive the property back.

"Therefore, the correct way to handle this is for the custodian to continue to look after the vehicle. Later, when the competent state agency has regulations and instructions on how to handle this, we will follow them," said Mr. Vinh.

Hoang Mai is the most populous district in Hanoi with over 500,000 people and is facing many infrastructure pressures as many high-rise apartment buildings are built. The situation of cars and motorbikes being parked on sidewalks and roads around urban areas such as HH Linh Dam, Kim Van - Kim Lu has been happening for many years due to overloaded infrastructure and inadequacies in implementing parking lot planning.

Viet An - Vo Hai