Given that securing a park took months if not years, Maxwell had kept hers but after spending $640, fellow colleague Jay Mann not only cancelled the park, but quit his job.
The Union Unite supported their position and told the Herald it was unfair Australian-owned Probe Group wasn't open to negotiating a better deal for them.
However, a company spokesman said staff who have parks were under no obligation to keep them and could cancel them at any time.
Maxwell said she asked about discounted parking after reading that a Wilson carpark, across from their building, wouldn't be charging during the March lockdown.
A single mother of two kids, she asked for help as a decent portion - about a quarter - of her wage was going on parking.
"I could still use that money on my children and things that we actually need."
Even more frustrating was the inability to use the carpark when the country dropped to emergency alert level 1. Auckland was elevated to level 3 on August 12.
"That's not fair. Why are we being charged for something that we're not allowed to use?
"I have two children, I have a carpark at our work site, I start work at 9am and have half an hour to get to work and barely make it even though I have a secure car park.
"For those people that have children and don't have a carpark I only feel for them because it's probably much harder."
Fellow staff member Jay Mann reluctantly cancelled his park after Probe kept pushing out the date for a possible return to the office.
They were initially told they would be back in the office by July, and after running some figures through his head, decided to keep it.
"But then July came around and it got pushed out to August. I've paid about 12 weeks now and this is at $80 a fortnight."
However, after accepting that, staff got another email saying they were on monthly review and they wouldn't be back any sooner - if at all - than September.
"I was thinking to myself 'you've got to be kidding me, I've just paid over 12 weeks for a car park and now you want to tell me that we're on monthly review?"
He cancelled his car park last week and has since got a new job.
Unite Union representative Shirley Wang said staff were still required to pay for the park when nobody had access to it.
"It's expecting people to pay the full amount for things that they can't use, that's kind of a joke."
The $40 weekly payments were not a lot for some, but for others that were on "borderline minimum wage", it was a significant hit, she said.
A representative from Oyster Property Group said they couldn't comment on the parking arrangement between an occupier and its employees and didn't have insight into charges passed on to staff.
However, the company had - on a case-by-case basis - negotiated supported packages with some occupiers.
"Throughout the Covid-19 lockdown period, and in the months following, Oyster has worked closely with occupiers on a case-by-case basis to provide support packages where possible.
"Oyster has not reduced access to the building."
A Probe Group spokesman said it had negotiated "exclusive use of some on-site parking which is managed by our landlord" for "employee convenience".
"The decision to use on-site parking at cost is optional.
"Our car parking agreements allow employees to cancel at any time. The decision to hire and use a car spot is completely voluntary.
"The car spaces are issued by our landlord and like many businesses we are obliged to continue paying to lease these car spots if employees elect to hire an exclusive spot."
The spokesman confirmed the company had not been offered a discounted rate from Oyster.
"I confirm we have not been eligible for any parking discount during this time and access has not been removed for team members who have requested on-site parking.
"When we moved to a temporary work from home model it was unclear how long we would be working remotely for. Employees are not obliged to continue renting a car spot if they don't wish to.
"Any suggestion that Probe is forcing employees to pay for parking they don't want to use is inaccurate. We had at least 10 employees who elected not to continue with their car parking spot after transitioning to work from home."
