{"id":556,"date":"2025-09-28T09:13:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T09:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/?p=556"},"modified":"2025-09-28T09:13:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T09:13:05","slug":"hughes-krupica-condominiums-what-is-common-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/hughes-krupica-condominiums-what-is-common-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Hughes Krupica: Condominiums: What is Common Property?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our firm has recently seen an influx of enquiries in relation to the question of what constitutes \u2018common property\u2019 vis-\u00e0-vis \u2018personal property\u2019 in a condominium registered under the Condominium Act of Thailand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Potentially one reason for the increase in such enquiries is due to the rise in the number of condominium projects in and around Phuket, but another more probable reason is because, as Phuket\u2019s condominium market matures, and more condominium projects and private condominium units are sold out to purchasers, the issue of use of the common property is becoming more prevalent.<\/p>\n

Completed condominium projects often have common area space that is not \u2018allocated\u2019 as a residential or commercial unit in the registered condominium plans, and the use of such space is potentially a source of revenue for a condominium, or otherwise could be set aside for some specific purpose for the benefit of the so-called \u2018joint owners.\u2019 However, as one can imagine, there are regulatory requirements about the use of condominium \u2018common property,\u2019 in addition to potential joint owner approval requirements under the Condominium Act \u2013 as well as the registered rules and regulations.<\/p>\n

Given this reality, use of the \u2018common property\u2019 can be a point of contention between joint owners, with various joint owners having differing ideas about how the unused property of a condominium should be allocated. One such point of contention we have heard recently is that it is unclear whether a particular part of a registered condominium is \u2018personal property\u2019 or \u2018common property,\u2019 and thus a proposed use of certain condominium property is stalled on the main question of this article \u2013 What does, in fact, legally constitute \u2018common property\u2019 of a registered condominium?<\/p>\n

To be clear, \u2018common property\u2019 has a specific legal exhaustive definition set out in Section 15 the Condominium Act. In this author\u2019s view, the definition of \u2018common property\u2019 can be summarised as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2018Common Property\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0is those parts of a registered condominium, including land and buildings, that are NOT registered on the public files at the Land Office as \u2018Personal Property.\u2019<\/p>\n

An even shorter way of saying this might be:\u00a0anything outside of the defined \u2018personal property\u2019 of a condominium is \u2018common property.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

One might point out that my summary definition is merely a \u2018negative\u2019 one, and still leaves open a grey area for interpretation. However, the Condominium Act provisions on what constitutes \u2018personal property\u2019 supports this summary definition.<\/p>\n

Under the Act, \u2018personal property\u2019 means the registered condominium units, which can be (and are) sold to purchasers, because they have their own condominium unit title deeds, which define the individual ownership of the area defined on the unit title deed as the condominium unit. Thus, anything outside of the such individually owned \u2018personal property\u2019 is the \u2018common property’ and is jointly owned proportionately by all individual owners of the \u2018personal property.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Do the walls that separate \u2018personal property\u2019 condominium units constitute \u2018personal property\u2019 as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The short answer is no, not in the strictest sense. However, such \u2018partition walls\u2019 are also not necessarily \u2018common property\u2019 jointly owned by all joint owners either. In fact, the Condominium Act (Section 13) defines the partition and walls between \u2018personal property\u2019 condominium units as jointly owned by the relevant condominium units divided. However, the Act goes on to say that the exercising the rights in relation to such partition walls shall be subject to the Rules and Regulations of the condominium.<\/p>\n

Does \u2018personal property\u2019 include the structures\/buildings of a condominium?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a corollary to the umbrella question under this article, we are often asked whether the structural buildings of a registered condominium could also constitute \u2018personal property?\u2019 The answer is generally, no, and is often confused with the area within the buildings that are registered as a condominium unit with a unit title deed.<\/p>\n

Building structures of a registered condominium do not have \u2018title\u2019 that is transferable on any record at the Land Office, and are therefore clearly \u2018common property.\u2019 They are the \u2018frame and structure\u2019 of the registered condominium, and indeed, under section 15 (3) and 15 (4) of the Condominium Act are part of the \u2018common property,\u2019 subject to regulation by the Act and the registered Rules and Regulations.<\/p>\n

An area within the structural buildings that does not have a condominium unit title deed would therefore also be \u2018common property\u2019 (a common example of this would be elevators or stairwells), because such area likewise does not have an individual unit title deed.<\/p>\n

An important consideration for condominiums it that individual condominium unit owners are prohibited from doing anything with their \u2018personal property\u2019 apartment units that would affect such buildings, frame, structure and stability because they in fact constitute \u2018common property.\u2019<\/p>\n

What are the requirement for setting aside use of the \u2018Common Property\u2019 of a condominium?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the Condominium Act, \u2018common property\u2019 can not merely be used without the proper consent of the joint owners. Section 46 of the Act states that a resolution must be obtained from the joint owners requiring\u00a0at least half of the total votes<\/strong>\u00a0of all joint owners of the condominium. Thus, the voting requirement to agree a specific use of a part of \u2018common property\u2019 is quite high.<\/p>\n

By Robert Krupica, Senior Partner, Hughes Krupica International Legal Services.<\/strong>
\nHughes Krupica is a law firm which specialises in Real Estate; Construction; Hospitality; Corporate; Dispute Resolution; and Litigation, operating in Bangkok and Phuket, servicing clients in relation to their business activities in Thailand and in other regions of Asia. www.hugheskrupica.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our firm has recently seen an influx of enquiries in relation to the question of what constitutes \u2018common property\u2019 vis-\u00e0-vis \u2018personal property\u2019 in a condominium registered under the Condominium Act of Thailand. Potentially one reason for the increase in such enquiries is due to the rise in the number of condominium projects in and around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thephuketnews.net\/WOP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}