Condominium registration, order amendments and attachments
Make the apartment an apartment.
A building never entered in the condominium register is, to the register, one parcel with several owners. Your apartment exists on the ground — but not as an address a buyer's bank can charge. We close that gap: the plan, the by-law, the attachments and the registration order.
Two routes, one goal — a unit that can be sold.
Condominium registration (first registration)
The building is standing, you have lived in it for years, and then you come to sell and discover that your apartment does not exist as a separate asset. A building that was never entered in the condominium register is, as far as the register is concerned, one parcel with several owners holding undivided shares. Under the Land Law a dealing in land is completed only by registration (ss. 6–7), and that registration is what turns the apartment, the parking space and the storeroom into a unit that can be sold, mortgaged, and inherited on its own. Until then you hold a genuine right with no address in the register — and the register is exactly what a buyer, and their bank, look at.
What we do
- Establish the full picture first: what the parcel shows today, who the registered owners are, what charges and notes sit on it, and what was actually built.
- Commission and supervise the survey and the condominium plan under the drafting instructions of the Land Registration and Settlement of Rights Authority, including the pre-submission online plan check.
- Assemble the owners' consents and the application. Section 143 of the Land Law places the application in the hands of owners holding more than half of the floor area.
- Draft an agreed by-law under s. 62 that fits this particular building, instead of the default by-law that otherwise applies under s. 64.
- Arrange the attachments — parking, storerooms, gardens, roofs — within s. 55, under which a dealing in the common property separately from the apartment has no effect.
- File and carry the case before the Land Registrar's supervisor through to the registration order and allocation of the units.
Where deals stall
An apartment that exists as an independent asset in the condominium register, with bylaws and attachments that match the reality of the building, so it can be sold, mortgaged, and transferred without a clean-up project first.
Amending the condominium order and attachments
This is the quiet gap that costs the most money. The roof above your apartment, the storeroom in the basement, the garden below the balcony: if they are not attached to your unit in the condominium registration order, they are common property belonging to all the owners, even if you alone have used them for twenty years. Use does not create title, and a buyer reads the order and the plan, not what everyone in the building knows. The gap detonates at exactly two points: when you come to sell, and when a developer arrives and the roof's building rights acquire a price.
What we do
- Order and read the condominium file from the Authority — registration order, by-law, and plan — and compare it against the site and against what your own sale contract says.
- Separate what is genuinely attached to the apartment from what remains common property under the Land Law definitions, including whatever the by-law provides.
- Check the planning layer before touching any consents: what building rights exist on the roof or in the yard, and what betterment levy exposure arises when they are exercised.
- Build the agreement between the owners and put it in writing: what is attached to whom, on what consideration, who maintains it, and what happens later.
- Prepare and file an application to amend the order before the Land Registrar's supervisor, with a surveyor's work and a corrected plan.
- Appear in the proceeding before the supervisor where consent is not given voluntarily. Section 145 empowers the supervisor to amend an order after each owner has had prior notice and an opportunity to be heard.
Where deals stall
A registration order that reflects what is actually yours, so that the gap between the presentation and the register does not become someone else's bargaining chip.
What we are asked about condominiums
Our building was never registered as a condominium — can we still sell the apartment?
You can, but you are selling something different from what you assume. The register holds no "apartment": it holds an undivided share in a parcel, and what identifies your apartment is an arrangement outside the register. That gap affects the buyer's mortgage, the payment schedule and the security the contract has to build, so it belongs in the negotiation rather than in a footnote.
Who has to agree in order to register a condominium?
The Land Law places the application with the owners whose apartments make up more than half of the floor area (s. 143). In practice, the more owners who sign off on the same picture — plan, attachments, and by-law — the fewer correction rounds the file takes at the supervisor's office.
What is the difference between the default by-law and an agreed by-law, and why should a buyer care?
The default by-law is what the statute applies to a condominium that never wrote one (s. 64). An agreed by-law is one the owners drew up themselves (s. 62), and it is where uses, attachments, and management are settled. A buyer who reads the by-law learns what may be done on the roof, who maintains what, and which of the seller's assurances appear nowhere in writing.
We have used the roof for twenty years. Is it ours?
Use alone does not create title. If the roof was not attached to your unit in the condominium registration order, it is common property of all the owners, and that is what a buyer, a bank and a developer will see. The fix is amending the order before the Land Registrar's supervisor, and while nobody is yet arguing about what the roof is worth, that is usually a simpler conversation.
Can we sell our share of the common property to a neighbor?
Not as a stand-alone transaction. Section 55(b) of the Land Law provides that a dealing in the common property separately from the apartment has no effect. The accepted route is attachment to a specific unit and a corresponding amendment of the order, rather than a sale of the common property as such.
Do all the neighbors have to sign to amend a registration order?
The consent route is the easier and faster one. Alongside it, s. 145 of the Land Law empowers the supervisor to amend a registration order after each owner has been given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard, so one missing signature is not necessarily the end of the road.
A conversation with a real estate lawyer, wherever you are in the process.
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