Condominium Property

Barcelone - Istanbul - Milan. Le complexe immobilier Diagonal Mar de Barcelone est une résidence s'apparentant à un condominium. Sa réalisation s'appuie sur l'argument du développement durable à partir de l'offre d'un grand parc paysager destiné au grand public. Symbole de la frénésie immobilière espagnole des années 2000, les catalans constatent les problèmes issus de la collaboration entre les secteurs public et privé dans la réalisation et la perception d'un nouveau paysage urbain composé de gratte-ciel, malgré une relative appropriation par les habitants de ce nouvel espace public. Sur le pourtour méditerranéen, une forme hybride de communauté fermée s'impose, à travers un mode de vie en complet décalage avec la culture locale.

Barcelona, Istanbul, Milano.
The real estate complex Diagonal Mar at Barcelona is an urban resort. Its realization is based on the alibi of sustainable development and the offering of a large landscaped park for the public. Symbol of the Spanish real estate frenzy of the 2000s, the Catalans criticize this mode to inhabit the contemporary city, while noting the issue of the public and private sector collaboration in the realization and the perception of a new urban landscape of skyscrapers, despite a relative ownership of the inhabitants of this new public space. On the Mediterranean, a hybrid form of gated community is needed, through a lifestyle completely in shift with the local culture.  - - Ballester, Patrice (2016), "Habiter en Méditerranée la métropole à l'épreuve du développement durable : Diagonal Mar Barcelone" in Annales de la recherche Urbaine, n°111, février 2016, pp.112-123.

The paper’s objective is to find out two different paths of the development of the concept of apartament ownership in Central Europe, as well as the modifications of that concept under communists regimes.  Condominium proved to be one of the most effective means of providing mass housing in Central and Eastern Europe. After 1945, Soviet ownership-like titles to apartments were created to deal with common problems of lack of housing after war and the desire of people for ‘ownership possession’ of at least an apartment in a multi-family housing. After the collapse of socialism at the beginning of the 1990s, in all Central and East European states there was a need to cut down public spending on housing. Privatisation of the public housing stock was aimed at relieving state budget from maintenance costs. For the state, the main benefit of the condominium model is that allows the occupants to share the cost and collective management of the joint property. The attitude of the socialist ideology to the dea of an ‘own flat’ and legal changes fuelled by rapid massive privatisation of both public and cooperative housing stock after 1990 are discussed in the article.

Rapid population increase in Tanzania's cities has risen the need for modern residential structures that accommodate a great number of people at one place as well as maintaining a well-structured city planning. Thus, the government enacted the Unit Titles Act 2008 in response. The law provide for individuals ownership of a certain unit within a property for their exclusive use while has to share the ownership of common areas: verandahs and balconies, and or yards, gardens and parks, passageways and halls, stairway and elevators, basements, parking, storage areas and main walls of the property. It also includes central heating and air conditioning systems, piping, wiring, partitions and walls that separate a unit from a common area. This paper explores on unit property operations in Tanzania.

Il tema oggetto di analisi concerne la natura delle obbligazioni assunte dall’amministratore nell’interesse del condominio , che, negli ultimi anni, ha dato vita a un vivace dibattito dottrinale, nonché a diversi contrasti giurisprudenziali. Quanto l'intervento delle Sezioni Unite del 2008 sembrava aver inflitto un duro colpo alla pretesa solidarietà tra i condomini, la recente riforma del condominio ha reso nuovamente attuale la questione tramite una modifica dell'art. 63 disp. att. c.c.

AbstractENG This contribution aims to study the condominium under the effective and managerial profile. The diffusion of buildings in which there are common parts linked by a relationship of accessory to the single exclusive properties and the peculiarities of the case, have created contrasting interpretations and applications, object of deepening. After a brief and general analysis of the institute, the paper focuses on the division of competences between the executive and the deliberative body, analyzing the jurisprudential contrasts in matters
of the assembly's competences on condominium resolutions as well as on the administrative capacity of the administrator; on the regime of obligations assumed in the interest of the condominium; on the responsibility for repairs and reconstruction, as well as for damages resulting from the failure to maintain, the flat roof that is not the common property of all the condominiums as well as the right of elevation and the theme of the indemnity pursuant to art. 1127, co. 4 cod. civ..

AbstractITA: Il presente contributo ha in oggetto lo studio del condominio sotto il profilo effettuale e gestionale.
La diffusione di edifici nei quali insistono parti comuni legati da relazione di accessorietà alle singole proprietà esclusive e le peculiarità della fattispecie, hanno dato luogo ad interpretazioni ed applicazioni contrastanti che saranno oggetto di approfondimento. Dopo un’analisi breve e generale dell’istituto, l’elaborato si sofferma sul
riparto di competenze tra organo esecutivo e deliberativo, ivi affrontando l’analisi dei contrasti giurisprudenziali insorti in materia di competenze dell’assemblea sulle delibere condominiali nonché sulla capacità processuale dell’amministratore; sul regime delle obbligazioni assunte nell’interesse del condominio; sulla responsabilità per le riparazioni e ricostruzione, nonché per i danni conseguenti all’omessa manutenzione,
del lastrico solare che non sia proprietà comune di tutti i condomini  nonché sul diritto di sopraelevazione, ove sarà approfondito il tema dell’indennità di cui all’art. 1127, co. 4 cod. civ.

The article examines the Unit Titles Act, its background, prospects and enforcement challenges. It is clear that the enactment of the Unit Titles Act aimed to inter alia ameliorate the problems associated with urban housing by providing for division of properties into units where common areas on land may be shared, including facilities and services thereupon. This form of common property ownership provides economized costs by spreading the cost among the occupiers. The article surveys the various modes of disposition through which a person can acquire or transfer a unit property in Tanzania. The modes include sale, lease and mortgage. The article notes that there are challenges that impinge on realization of effective disposition under the Act. Hence, there is need for an effective legal and institutional regime for the Act to achieve its intended objective. Laws like the Land Act, Registration Act should be harmonized with the Unit Titles Act. There should also be robust, well-coordinated administrative machinery to ensure effective development and transfer of unit title properties. Such effort should go hand in hand with improving the capacity of the relevant land departments in the office of the Registrar of Titles and Local Government Authorities.

This study done more than a decade ago (2008) was an effort by a select group of researchers (Ringo Tenga, Amon Mattee, Ntengua Mdoe ,Raymond Mnenwa, Sengondo Mvungi,  and Martin Walsh) to realize the challenge given in 2006 to pastoralist stakeholders in Tanzania by the UN Special Rapporteur Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen on the rights and situation of Indigenous peoples, where he argued on the necessity of developing options for securing livelihoods in the face of loss of basic resources. Here the authors present options for Pastoralist livelihoods in terms of current State Policies (Prof. Amon Mattee - SUA and Dr. Martin Walsh - Cambridge U. - UK), Legal Status (Drs.Ringo Tenga & Sengondo Edmund Mvungi - UDSoL) and Economic Prospects (Prof. Ntegua Mdoe & Dr. Raymond Mnenwa - SUA)). The study was commissioned by CORDS, PWC, IIED, MMM Ngaramtoni Centre, TNRF and UCRT. It has been funded by CORDAID, TROCAIRE, Ireland Aid and the Wildlife Conservation Society AHEAD Programme. (As usual views expressed herein are solely those of the authors).

Statutory condominium regimes facilitate a massive increase in the density of owners, and the courts are responding to this spatial reorganization of ownership by reconstructing what it means to be the owner of an interest in land. This article analyzes the ten cases over eight years (2008-2015) in which Ontario and British Columbia courts grant eviction and sale orders against owners within condominium for anti-social behaviour. The expulsion orders are new; until these cases, ownership within condominium was thought to be as robust as ownership outside condominium such that anti-social behaviour was not a ground on which owners could be evicted from, and forced to sell, their property. In the majority of cases, some form of mental disorder appears to be a contributing factor in the anti-social behaviour that leads to eviction and forced sale. The article then argues that these cases are not only reconstructing ownership, but also redistributing property. This is because, while the eviction and forced sale orders diminish the security of property for a few, they enhance the ownership of a great many more by providing a remedy—the physical and legal expulsion of an owner—that is not available to those outside condominium. Finally, the paper argues that the judicial willingness to reconstruct ownership is a function, at least in part, of the spatial reorganization of owners. What it means to be an owner of land emerged in a context where owners were dispersed over the surface of the earth. Under statutory condominium regimes, owners can now be stacked in a vertical column many stories high. The article concludes by asking whether the judicial reconstruction of ownership is an appropriate response to the spatial reorganization of owners and the resulting challenges posed by anti-social behaviour when the behaviour is frequently attributable, at least in part, to some form of mental disorder.

The question if every co-owner in a condominium is held, or not, to pay the whole amount of the expenses sustained for its functioning has not been given, for a long time, any answers, notwithstanding the decision of the Corte di Cassazione (n° 9148/2008): the Court stated that every co-owner is held to pay his own share of the common debt and not the entire due. The matter has been handled by a Parliamentary intervention in 2012 (art. 63 disp. att. cod. civ.). The new rule, however, is not fit for the satisfaction of the different involved interests and it is such to discourage the fulfillment of the obligations of every co-owner towards the condominium.

L’analisi si indirizza sui poteri dei singoli condomini e dell’assemblea in merito all’abbattimento delle barriere architettoniche. Nonostante i progressi derivanti dall’applicazione del principio di “solidarietà condominiale”, permangono limiti irragionevoli nel bilanciamento con la tutela della proprietà sia nei rapporti interni al condominio sia nei rapporti tra condomini e terzi. La disciplina vigente dei rapporti di condominio e di vicinato attende ancora di essere compiutamente attuata a salvaguardia dei fondamentali diritti delle persone che a vario titolo vi partecipano.

This presentation consists of two parts. Part One aims to situate the blocks-of-flats sector within the housing system in two main ways:-first theoretically, by engaging the framework of 'diverse economies' to the historic forms of housing provision in Romania, including during the context of post-communist transition; and-second, in terms of mapping residents' profile and occupancy outcomes between 2007 and 2014; this is based on an analysis drawing on Eurostat micro-data for the years 2007 and 2014, which shows persistent socioeconomic advantage. Part Two focuses on current occupancy challenges in revitalising the stock. In particular, I emphasise three challenges:-the implications of residents' preferences for individual rather than collective solutions;-the challenge of social mix in a context of state laissez-faire-the new capitalist pressures of densification of these already dense neighbourhoods. The presentation concludes that flats are still good homes but their liveability is decreasing given densification and diminishing green space.

On October 31, 2012, the Commissioner on Internal Revenue issued Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 65-2012 (“RMC 65-2012”) declaring that all association dues, membership fees, and other assessment/charges collected by condominium corporations shall now constitute income payments or compensation for beneficial services it provides to its members and tenants, for income tax purposes.  Moreover, association dues, membership fees and other assessment/charges collected by a condominium corporation shall be subject to value added tax since they constitute income payments or compensation for the beneficial services it provides to its members and tenants. 

Further, Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 9-2013 (“RMC 9-2013) also declared the taxability of association dues, membership fees and other assessment/charges collected by homeowner’s associations from its homeowners and other entities despite its tax exemption privilege under Section 18 of R.A. No. 9904, also known as the Magna Carta for Homeowner’s and Homeowner’s Association.  The Memorandum Circular shall now impose a value added tax (VAT), percentage tax and income tax on such association dues, membership fees and other assessment/charges collected by homeowner’s associations from its homeowners. 

There is however a creative way for the homeowner’s association to be exempted from the directive of the Bureau of Internal Revenue from payment of income tax, value added tax and percentage tax.  The conditions are as follows:
1) The homeowners’ association must be a duly constituted "association" as defined under Section 3(b) of RA 9904;
2) The local government unit having jurisdiction over the homeowners’ association must issue a certification identifying the basic services being rendered by the homeowners’ association and therein stating its lack of resources to render such services notwithstanding its clear mandate under applicable laws, rules and regulations.  Provided further, that such services must fall within the purview of the "basic community services and facilities" which is defined under Section 3(d) of RA No. 9904 as those referring to services and facilities that redound to the benefit of all homeowners and from which, by reason of practicality, no homeowner may be excluded such as, but not limited to: security; street and vicinity lights; maintenance, repairs and cleaning of streets; garbage collection and disposal; and other similar services and facilities; and
3) The homeowners’ association must present proof (i.e. financial statements) that the income and dues are used for the cleanliness, safety, security and other basic services needed by the members, including the maintenance of the facilities of their respective subdivisions or villages.
Updates as of this writing reveal that on September 5, 2013, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati declared invalid RMC No. 65-2012 which subjected a condominium corporation to VAT and income tax. (Calundan, 2013).

Moreover, the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has just recently ruled that condominium or association dues as well as other fees collected from unit owners are not subject to income tax and withholding tax  (Dela Pena, 2014).

Nevertheless, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) insisted on collecting taxes on condominium association dues on the ground that the tax court’s decision did not touch Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 65-2012 issued in 2012 that imposed the taxes, referring only to old BIR rulings on a related issue.  “Since the CTA did not rule on the validity of RMC 65-2012, therefore, it is the prevailing rule today and all concerned taxpayers are required to comply with the provisions of said RMC,” as claimed by Kim Henares, Chief Commissioner of the BIR.  (Ramirez, 2014)

This paper will deal with a critical analysis of BIR Revenue Memorandum Circular Nos. 65-2012 and 9-2013 and determine their validity or invalidity.

Những năm vừa qua, nhiều khu vực đất công cộng ở đô thị được quản lý chưa hiệu quả và đang bị xâm hại, sử dụng sai mục đích, hoặc kém hiệu quả.  Các khu chung cư ở Hà Nội trong giai đoạn chuyển đổi là điển hình của yếu kém trong quản lý đất công cộng. Tuy nhiên, đa số các khu chung cư mới đã thay đổi trong mô hình quản lý và giải quyết tình trạng coi đây là một ‘tài sản’ chung không ai ‘khóc’.  Bài học và kinh nghiệm từ quản lý các khu chung cư và khu đô thị mới chính là cơ sở để giải quyết các vấn đề trong quản lý đất công cộng hiện nay theo cách tiếp cận quyền tài sản.

Despite the influence of real estate
companies on the production of the built
environment, their role of in smart city
initiatives has been overlooked. As part of
a smart city demonstrator program
implemented by the national government,
Japan has witnessed the large-scale
adoption of smart grid technology by
condominium developers. The article shows
how the practical implementation of this
government initiative was determined by
the strategic motivations of the developers,
the latter having equipped their mid-range
condominiums with smart grids in order to
attract buyers with ‘‘club’’ services.
The analysis is based on a corpus of
137 condominiums equipped with
this technology and a case study analysis of
a residential complex.

The Skytrain system was introduced in Bangkok in 1999 in order to move towards a more sustainable urban environment. More recently, the mass transit lines have been extended into areas away from the immediate center of the city, which has resulted in the building of many  new luxury condominiums within close proximity to the mass transit lines and stations in these areas. Jenks (2003) has argued that the Skytrain and the places it connects to represent a ‘global world’ that is separate in form and character from the local one outside. In light of this and the fact that the neighbourhoods in which the new condominiums are placed in are often devoid of the cosmopolitan facilities of the central city, this paper aims to examine how the developers of these condominiums construct a place-identity for their developments in their marketing material and the extent to which the identity that is developed fosters a connection to the local environment they are placed in. The paper concludes that the local environment is neglected in favour of emphasizing connections to the cultural, business and financial icons of the central city and this may have implications for the housing choices that the purchasers make and the extent to which the new residents have a connection to the locality.

Condominium enables the subdivision of buildings into multiple private titles. It does so by combining individual titles with an undivided share of common property, a right to participate in governing the property, and an obligation to contribute to its maintenance. The dissolution of condominium breaks apart this package of rights and responsibilities, and results in the termination of the individual titles. Some common law jurisdictions require the unanimous consent of title holders to dissolve condominium, others permit it with a supermajority vote. All jurisdictions allow for non-consensual dissolution, and thus the termination of titles without consent, with a court order.This paper reviews dissolution rules and reform efforts in several common law jurisdictions and then uses the condominium legislation and case law from British Columbia to argue that non-consensual dissolution of condominium, whether by supermajority vote or court order, should be understood as private takings...

1. L'amministrazione disgiuntiva delle parti comuni come gestione di affari altrui: il difetto di legittimazione dei singoli condòmini. - 2. Segue: l'impossibilità di gestione delle parti comuni da parte degli organi condominiali. - 3. Segue: l'urgenza della spesa. - 4. Segue: l'eventuale necessarietà dell'atto disgiuntivo di gestione delle parti comuni . - 5.Segue: la ratifica da parte degli organi condominiali. - 6. Ordinaria e straordinaria amministrazione delle parti comuni. - 7. La legittimazione ad agire ovvero a resistere in giudizio per la tutela delle parti comuni da parte di singoli condòmini. - 8. L'obbligazione degli altri condòmini di rimborsare le spese sostenute. - 9. L'esperibilità dell'azione generale di arricchimento senza causa

Strata or condominium property creates multiple privately owned lots or units within an association of owners. Dissolving strata property involves winding-up the association and terminating the private interests. As a result, the non-consensual dissolution of strata property involves the taking of property from those owners who oppose dissolution. The owners of individual lots become co-owners of the land formerly within the association, but the non-consenting owners have their property interests in separate lots taken from them. Beginning with the observation that non-consensual dissolution of strata property results in a taking of property, this article analyzes British Columbia’s move to facilitate non-consensual dissolution by lowering the required threshold in a dissolution vote from unanimous consent to 80 percent of owners. A supermajority of owners within strata property may now impose dissolution on a dissenting minority. The dissolution provisions in British Columbia’s Strata Property Act require court confirmation of dissolution votes and indicate that courts must consider “the best interests of the owners”, and the probability and extent of “significant unfairness” or “significant confusion and uncertainty” when determining whether or not to confirm a dissolution vote. The article predicts how courts will interpret these provisions, and it suggests how they should. It concludes by insisting that the courts recognize they will be making important decisions about the character of property when they rule in contested strata property dissolution cases, and that these decisions will have a significant impact on cities, particularly those, such as Vancouver, where strata property has become prominent among legal architectures of ownership.

Absentee owners and overzealous body corporate (condominium) trustee or chairperson can violate the rights of tenants. Absentee owners and their non-attendance of meetings may compel the remaining owners do what it takes to protect the sectional titles scheme. Meetings are essential: general resolution for approving the budget and election of trustees, a unanimous resolution for changing management rules; leasing or selling part of the common property and a special resolution for cancelling the managing agent’s contract, amend the conduct rules and carry out necessary repairs and improvements to common property.

Comme la Suisse, la Turquie célèbre en 2015 le cinquantième anniversaire de l’introduction en droit civil de règles sur la propriété par étages. Mais elle a opté pour un système totalement différent, qui peut offrir un autre point de vue pour les juristes suisses. Le système turc est basé sur la propriété individuelle des parties exclusives du bâtiment totalement construit. Le propriétaire de la partie exclusive a également une copropriété sur les domaines communs et le bien-fonds. Ainsi, en prévoyant deux sortes de propriété distinctes sur un même immeuble, le système turc s’écarte du principe de l’accession. Ces dispositions figurent dans une loi spéciale.
Le titre d’acquisition pour la constitution de la propriété par étages peut être un acte juridique ou un jugement. L’acte juridique constitutif est en principe un contrat ou un acte unilatéral ; il peut aussi s’agir d’une servitude d’étages, qui, malgré sa dénomination, une obligation personnelle de faire liée à la quote-part. Chaque partie exclusive est immatriculée comme immeuble sur un feuillet du livre de propriété par étages et sa quote-part sur le bien-fonds y est indiquée.

How to prepare yourself for uncertain times, if that is the case in Malaysia. Analysis of current and future situation, what is the world saying about Malaysia, Survivor kit, bright future as per current outlook. This is what you will understand going through this provocative paper.

Community title schemes are an increasingly popular form of housing in Queensland and throughout Australia in general. Community title housing (typically apartment buildings and townhouses) involve medium to high-density living, which in turn tend to produce a higher incidence of neighbourhood disputes than lower density living options. However, a second reason for the prevalence of the disputes is the varied nature of interests in a community title scheme. Within the single scheme, there may be owner occupiers (either residential or commercial or both), tenants (again, residential, commercial or both), members of the body corporate committee, and property managers. Each of these types of stakeholders has different interests and perceptions of how a scheme ought to operate, with the potential for serious disputes to result. Recognising the potentially harmful effects of community title disputes and the need for accessible dispute resolution options, the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management (OBCCM) was established to provide specialist dispute resolution procedures. The OBCCM offers conciliation and adjudication, with avenues of appeal available to the newly-established Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The OBCCM’s self-identified objective in relation to this service is to offer “a quality dispute resolution service which is timely and responsive.” In practice, the dispute resolution services are a hybrid of inquisitorial and adversarial approaches, focussing on the legal aspects of the dispute. This paper combines academic and practitioner perspectives to explore the possibility of a therapeutic approach to body corporate and community title disputes. The paper firstly provides an overview of the dispute resolution context of community title disputes and the role of the OBCCM. It then considers the effect of current OBCCM practices on participant wellbeing, and questions whether the introduction of a therapeutic approach might not only improve outcomes in discrete cases, but in fact have the potential to enhance or restore community living within troubled schemes. Finally, the paper comments on the type of legal and dispute system changes that might be required to facilitate such an approach.

This is an expanded outline of my report for a conference on  "water resources and shared immovable property" held in the University of Bari on 15th may 2015. As far as I had already dealt with the problems of public economic services under the profile of contract, I decided  to experiment a new approach looking at water as a "commons". The idea I am searching upon is that there is some point of contact between looking at commons as goods an looking at them as the point of reference of obligation and liabilities against third parties.  In a way the civil law code already rule a numner of common interest in contracts,: this being the case every time a general interest "crystallizes" in a remedy that may be activated by any "interested person". This generally happens in the field of succession, family law and even credit and property every time a contract is "void" for infringement of rules that protect "general" interests.; where "general does not mean public, but interest of all citizens, so as all af them may have a say where there is an infringment. This is very similar the classic case of common "goods"  and may offer a chance to strenghte control of economic activities, rather tahn economic "resources". The problem is that in the tradition of the civil codes the categories of those invested with this qualification and related powers is very streamlined: creditors, owners, buyers, successors and the like. Pheraps it is possible that the range of interested person may be, or has been enlarged  by law, and this may be the case for the users of "common" goods, like water.

Absentee owners and an overzealous body corporate (condominium) trustee or chairperson can violate the rights of tenants. Absentee owners and their non-attendance of meetings may compel the remaining owners do what it takes to protect the sectional titles scheme. Meetings are essential: general resolution for approving the budget and election of trustees, a unanimous resolution for changing management rules; leasing or selling part of the common property and a special resolution for cancelling the managing agent’s contract, amend the conduct rules and carry out necessary repairs and improvements to common property.

Quoted commentary on the recent Massachusetts Appeals Court decision in Chamberlain, et al. v. Badaoui, et al. that denied a commercial condominium owner’s claim of easement by necessity through an adjoining unit and the cautionary tale it serves for drafting practitioners.

This is a comprehensive chapter on recent case law developments, advantages, disadvantages, alternatives, and planning considerations, as well as the lawyer’s role in creating and managing commercial and mixed-use condominium entities. Topics discussed are: "as built" plans, drafting and negotiating master deeds, conducting unit sales transactions, understanding distinctions between condominiums and cooperatives, and addressing the purchase, sale, leasing, and financing of commercial condominiums. Other topics include common areas and common facilities, phasing, certification requirements, occupancy conflicts, transition plans, and mixed-use options.

With special emphasis on sustainability issues, the paper investigates marketing strategies in housing, adding to a more orthodox and conventional body of knowledge regarding the "needs and wants" not only of the alleged end-user, but also of other entities participating in the process of housing production.