Buying an Apartment in a Multi-Owner Building: Checking the Common Parts

You buy a unit and you inherit a share of everything outside it. The common parts determine your running costs and your resale, and almost nobody inspects them.

An apartment purchase is really two purchases. The first is the unit, which buyers inspect carefully. The second is a share in the structure, the roof, the lifts, the plant, the car park and the corridors, which buyers almost never inspect at all. The second purchase is where the unexpected costs live, because a failing lift or a leaking roof is funded by the owners collectively and arrives without notice. This is the sequence for checking what you are joining.

Before stage one

You are ready when you accept that the building matters as much as the unit and have allowed time to inspect both. Arrange access to plant rooms, the roof and the car park before you make an offer, and treat a refusal to allow that access as information in itself. A seller who cannot get you onto the roof is telling you something.

• Ask how many units the building contains and how many are owner occupied rather than let.
• Ask whether an owners association or equivalent arrangement exists and who runs it.
• Request the last two years of service charge accounts, not a single summary figure.
• Ask what major works have been done in the last five years and what is planned.
• Confirm the age of the building and whether any system has reached the end of its life.

Stage 1: Establish what your unit boundary actually is

In a multi-owner building the unit is defined by the building rather than by pegs, and the line between what you own and what is shared is not obvious. Internal finishes are usually yours; the structure around them usually is not. Balconies, windows, the pipework in a wall and the air conditioning unit on the roof each need a specific answer.

• Deliverable: A written list of elements classified as unit, shared, or shared but for your exclusive use.
• Owner: Your adviser, reading the documents that govern the building.
• Approval gate: You can say who repairs each major element before you commit.

Stage 2: Read the documents that govern the building

There will be a set of rules governing how the building is managed, what owners may do to their units, how costs are shared and how decisions are taken. These documents bind you from the day you complete. Buyers read the sale contract carefully and these not at all, which is the wrong way round, because the sale contract affects one day and these affect every day afterwards.

• Deliverable: A copy of the governing documents and a summary of the obligations they impose on you.
• Owner: Your adviser, with a plain language summary for you.
• Approval gate: Nothing in the documents conflicts with how you intend to use the property.

Stage 3: Inspect the shared physical assets

Walk the roof, the plant rooms, the car park, the stairs and the corridors with someone who can assess condition. You are looking for the expensive items: waterproofing, lifts, main plant, the facade and the fire systems. The condition of the corridors tells you about management; the condition of the roof tells you about the next five years of bills.

• Deliverable: A condition note on each major shared element with an indication of remaining life.
• Owner: An engineer or surveyor instructed by you, not the building manager.
• Approval gate: No major element is in unknown condition.

Stage 4: Examine the service charge history and the reserve

Two years of accounts tell you what the building actually costs to run and whether the charge has been set realistically. The more important question is whether any money is being set aside for major replacement. A building with a low charge and no reserve is not cheap; it is deferring the bill until an owner is forced to pay it in one go.

• Deliverable: A note of the annual charge per unit, the trend, and the balance of any reserve.
• Owner: You, with the figures supplied by the seller and checked by your adviser.
• Approval gate: You understand why the charge is the amount it is, not just what it is.

Stage 5: Check for arrears and for disputes between owners

Arrears tell you two things: that the building has a cash flow problem, and that enforcement is weak. Both mean the owners who do pay are subsidising the others and will be asked for more. Disputes between owners, particularly about costs or about alterations, are equally informative and rarely volunteered.

• Deliverable: A statement of arrears across the building and a direct answer about any ongoing dispute.
• Owner: The seller, with the question put in writing so the answer is on record.
• Approval gate: You have a written answer about arrears and disputes, not a verbal reassurance.

Stage 6: Confirm what came with the unit and what did not

Parking bays, storerooms and roof space are frequently sold with a unit, frequently described as included, and frequently not recorded anywhere. Establish for each one whether it is part of what you are acquiring, a shared area allocated to you, or something a previous owner simply started using.

• Deliverable: A list of every space described as included, with the basis for each one documented.
• Owner: Your adviser, checking each against the record and the governing documents.
• Approval gate: Nothing described as included rests only on the seller saying it is.

Stage 7: Price the findings before you agree a price

A roof approaching replacement, a lift at the end of its life or a reserve with nothing in it are all quantifiable. Convert each into a share of the likely cost based on your unit proportion, and bring that number to the negotiation rather than a general sense that the building is tired.

• Deliverable: A short schedule of foreseeable building costs and your proportionate share of each.
• Owner: You, with the engineer supplying the cost ranges.
• Approval gate: Your offer reflects the building, not only the unit.

Handovers between stages

The weak handover here is between the engineer who inspects the building and the person negotiating the price. An engineer reports that waterproofing is near the end of its service life, which gets summarised as the roof is old, which gets dropped from the negotiation entirely. Insist that every condition finding is converted into a number and a share before it leaves the engineer report.

How you know it is finished

The check is complete when you can state what you own, what you share, what it costs each year, what is coming, and what your share of that would be. Because the framework governing multi-owner buildings and owners associations continues to develop, confirm the current requirements with a licensed adviser and with the relevant authority when you buy rather than relying on how an earlier building was run.

Domira works on the ownership side of a Saudi property for owners based abroad: verifying title and boundaries, assessing the building, handling registration and handover, and managing the asset afterwards. For legal and tax questions, work with a licensed adviser; Domira will tell you plainly what the property itself supports.