Parking, storage and the protected room: what counts in the apartment's area and what does not

"A four-room apartment, 105 sq m, with a storeroom and a parking space" — one sentence containing three different recording systems. Anyone who does not separate them does not know precisely what they are buying.

The protected room — the only item with binding numbers

A residential protected room is not a "security room" whose dimensions the developer picks. It is a structure subject to the Civil Defence (Shelter Construction Specifications) Regulations and Home Front Command guidance, and they fix numbers:

Two things follow in practice. First, the protected room counts in the apartment's area, so a 105 sq m apartment with a 9 sq m protected room has 96 sq m of other rooms. Second, the walls are thick — 20 or 15 cm of reinforced concrete — so the net area left inside is smaller than the outside dimensions suggest.

Precision warning: the regulations set a minimum, not a uniform standard. The protected room's area in a particular apartment and its wall thicknesses are fixed in that building's permit drawings and appear in that apartment's specification and plan. The numbers here are the floor the regulations set.

The storeroom — an area, but not apartment area

A storeroom is not part of the apartment's area. It is a separate item in the sale specification, with its own area, its own location and sometimes its own recording arrangement — attached to the apartment, or part of the common property whose use has been allocated.

That distinction is not semantic. It decides three things: whether the storeroom can be sold separately, whether it counts in calculating shares of the common property, and who maintains it. Where it is written — Part D of the specification and the building's by-laws. Explained in the article on common property and by-laws.

Parking — an allocated space and an attached space are not the same

Parking too is recorded separately from the apartment, and it carries a distinction people tend to miss:

• An attached parking space — recorded as an attachment to the apartment. It passes with the apartment, and can be identified on the plan by number.
• An allocated parking space — an area of the common property whose use has been allocated. It is not an attachment, and the consequences differ on sale and on any change of use.

The question to ask is not whether there is parking but whether the parking is attached or allocated, and where that is recorded — a question answered in the specification and the by-laws, not in a conversation at the sales office.

Why it matters at all: the permitted deviation

When the specification states an area, it states an area measured by a defined rule — and the deviation from it has a limit: 2%. But that rule applies to the apartment's area. A storeroom and a parking space, not being apartment area, are not part of that framework, and any deviation in them is measured against what the specification declared for them separately.

The full explanation of the area calculation rule and the permitted deviation is in the article on apartment area and permitted deviation, and the structure of the specification in the article on the sale specification.

Seven questions for the specification, not the sales office

1. What the protected room's area is in this apartment, rather than the regulatory minimum.
2. What the protected room's wall thickness is — 20 or 15 cm — and how that shows in the area left inside.
3. Whether the protected room's area is included in the declared apartment area. The answer is yes, but it is worth seeing in writing.
4. What the storeroom's area is, and where it sits on the plan.
5. Whether the storeroom is attached or common property in allocated use.
6. Whether the parking is attached or an allocated space, and what its number is on the plan.
7. What the apartment's share of the common property is, and whether the storeroom and parking entered that calculation.

All seven are answered from one document — the specification — which is why it is worth asking for it before signing rather than after. At Tawfik Zidan Ltd the specification can be requested through the contact page, and the apartment mix is shown on the Mitzpe Kalaniyot page.