The draft law on flats gives flat owners stronger rights to common areas
The bill seeks to end disputes between apartment owners and builders over the ownership and use of common areas. | Photo credit: File Photo
The proposed Karnataka Apartment Ownership and Management Act, 2026 finally attempts to end the disputes arising between apartment owners and builders over the ownership and use of common areas and lays down a comprehensive legal framework defining what constitutes common areas and facilities, who owns them and how they should be managed.
However, there is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to management, the apartment owners said. The proposed legislation implies that each apartment owner will automatically have an undivided and non-exclusive ownership right to the land and all common areas of the project. This ownership will remain inseparable with the apartment and will pass when the apartment is sold, inherited or transferred.
While the clarity eases the confusion that has prevailed among flat sellers for years, Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, convener of the Karnataka Home Buyers Forum, pointed out that the transfer rules will be in direct conflict with the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.
Mr. Padmanabhachar noted that Section 17 of the RERA Act, 2016 said that the title to the common area should be transferred to the allottee association by executing a transfer deed. However, in the proposed law, the ownership of land and common areas will remain with the joint apartment owners, not with the community itself.
“For example, if our land ownership were transferred to individual apartment owners, and there are five thousand apartment owners, how can the government register five thousand names in the land register? It is practically impossible,” he said.
Detailed definitions
The bill introduces a detailed definition of common areas, significantly expanding the scope of traditional spaces such as stairways, elevators, and corridors, and adding staff areas for security, drainage, sanitation, and renewable energy installations.
The bill states that common areas will automatically include any community or commercial facility, including clubhouses, swimming pools and other recreational facilities built within the project and consuming the project’s floor area ratio (FAR).
Builders can retain ownership of such facilities only if they are built on a separate plot outside the project, specifically approved in the approved plan and disclosed to the buyer before the sale of the apartments. Such privately retained facilities cannot be counted in the calculation of the flat owners’ built-up area or their share of the land.
It is with this clarification that the saga of the misuse of common spaces by the builders ends, as they will no longer be held by them.
Ownership
The undivided share of each apartment owner in the land and common facilities will be determined in proportion to the private area of the apartment to the total private area of all apartments in the project.
The bill also prohibits promoters, condo owners or any other person from retaining exclusive control over common areas, restricting their lawful use, or charging fees, except as permitted by law or bylaw.
Is the parking fiasco being resolved?
The bill states that open, stilt, basement and podium parking areas will continue to be common areas and cannot be sold as separate property simply because they have been zoned. Only closed or separately approved parking units transported by means of a registered document can be considered as private parking spaces.
V. Srivinivas, a member of a North Bengaluru housing society, pointed out that there was no clear demarcation that the parking space to be added should be exclusively for the same purpose. He noted that specific definitions are important in an apartment setting because there is always room for abuse.
Published – 16 Jul 2026 23:22 IST