Common property and by-laws: the two parts of the specification that decide how the building looks in twenty years

You can live in an apartment for years without opening Parts C and D of the specification. The moment they are opened is usually a moment of dispute: who pays for the lift repair, whether a balcony may be enclosed, who chose the management company.

The sale specification, whose structure is fixed by order, devotes two whole parts to these questions — and does so before the building is built.

Part C: common property

Here the shared areas, lifts and storerooms are set out, along with — and this is the interesting clause — those parts that may not be removed from the common property.

That distinction is the substance of the deal. Any area that may be removed from the common property is an area that can be attached to a particular apartment — a roof, a yard, a storeroom, a parking space. And any area that may not be removed stays everyone's, permanently.

Part D: the condominium

Part D contains the by-laws, the share of the common property and the expenses. That share is not a formality: it fixes two things at once —

1. The key for dividing the building's expenses. An apartment with a large share pays more for the lift repair, for painting the stairwell and for maintaining the pump.
2. The weight of the apartment's vote at the owners' meeting — that is, its influence over future decisions.

That yields a counter-intuitive conclusion: in a small building, each apartment's share is large — which raises both the expense and the influence. In a large building the reverse. It is one of the practical differences between a twenty-unit project and a two-hundred-unit one; compare the article on Trio BaEmek with the article on HaRova Haifa.

What changes in a multi-building project

Where a project is built of several buildings on one compound, a question arises that does not exist in a single building: is the common property the building's or the compound's?

• If it is the building's — each building manages itself, and its expenses are separate.
• If it is the compound's — yard, car park, gate and systems are shared across all the buildings, and expenses are divided between them.

There is no single right answer; there is an answer that must be in writing. The company's multi-building projects — Mitzpe Kalaniyot (six buildings), Ma'arava in Gan Yavne (eight), Achuzat Zemer in Ra'anana (six), BeTzavta Harish (13) — are exactly where that question should be asked in advance.

Yard development is an item carrying three inspection years in the Sale Law schedule, including settlement. In a project where the yard is the compound's common property, a claim about settlement is made on behalf of all the owners rather than one apartment. See the article on inspection and warranty periods.

Eight questions before signing

1. What is my apartment's share of the common property?
2. What is the expense key, and is it identical to that share?
3. What has been removed from the common property, and in whose favour?
4. What may not be removed from the common property?
5. In a multi-building project — is the common property the building's or the compound's?
6. Who appoints the management company in the early years, and for how long?
7. Do the by-laws restrict uses — enclosing a balcony, short-term letting, pets?
8. What do the by-laws say about changes to the facade?

This is a practical guide and not legal advice. Condominium by-laws are a binding legal document, and your own lawyer should read them before you sign.