A woman who offered her unused parking spot to a friend thought she was doing a simple favor. Instead, she found out her friend had been charging someone else to park there without asking her permission.

The arrangement ended with a car being towed and a disagreement over who should have warned the driver.

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A parking favor turns into a paid arrangement

In a Reddit post, the woman explained that her apartment building assigns one numbered parking spot to each unit. Because she doesn’t currently have a car, her space usually sits empty.

When a friend who worked nearby asked whether she could use the spot a few days a week, the woman agreed and gave her the garage fob. She said she made it clear that the permission was only for her friend’s car.

A few weeks later, the building manager contacted her about an unfamiliar vehicle that had been parking in the space every day. When she asked her friend, the friend admitted she had been letting a coworker use the spot and charging him $80 a month.

According to the woman, her friend assumed the arrangement was fine because the parking spot wasn’t being used anyway.

She took back the parking spot, and the coworker’s car was towed

After learning about the arrangement, the woman asked her friend to return the garage fob. She also informed building management that neither her friend nor the coworker had permission to park in her space anymore.

The coworker parked there again the following day, and his car was towed.

Her friend was upset, arguing that she should have given them a few days to find another parking arrangement. The friend also said her coworker hadn’t known she didn’t own the spot.

The woman acknowledged that she felt bad for the coworker, who appeared to have been misled about the arrangement. Still, she questioned why she should have to accommodate a rental agreement she never knew about or approved.

Commenters questioned who should be responsible for the towing costs

Many commenters focused on the friend’s decision to charge for a parking space she had been allowed to use for free. They argued that permission to park there herself did not give her permission to rent the space to someone else.

Several suggested that the friend should reimburse her coworker for what he paid and cover the towing costs. Others pointed out that the coworker may have believed he had a legitimate parking arrangement and had no reason to expect his car would be towed.

The discussion also raised a practical question: Did the friend tell her coworker that he could no longer park there after the woman revoked permission? The post doesn’t say whether she did, or whether she returned the garage fob before the car was towed.

The parking spot was empty, but it wasn’t hers to rent out

The disagreement came down to two different views of the original favor. The friend apparently saw an unused parking space as an opportunity to help a coworker and earn some extra money. The woman, however, had agreed to let one specific person use a space assigned to her apartment, not to let that person make a separate arrangement with someone else.

By the time she learned what was happening, her friend had already been collecting rent, the coworker had come to rely on the parking spot, and taking it back had consequences for someone who may not have known the full story.