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Do You Really Own Your Parking Spot?

Blog by Marcie Panah BSc, MA Personal Real Estate Corporation | December 15th, 2016

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Did you know parking can fall under so many categories that you need to look into properly otherwise you'll end up with no parking?  Take a look at the below categories and find out what your parking stall falls under.  

  1. Common Property:

    • Non-Exclusive Use: where an owner, resident, tenant or visitor may park anywhere or use a storage locker on a first come basis.
    • Short-Term Exclusive Use Common Property: This will allow council to designate common property for the exclusive use of a tenant or owner. It is important to note that this permission or privilege may only be given for a period of not more than one year*, and may be renewed or cancelled
    • Leased or Licensed Use: The owner developer, subject to certain terms as may be set out in the Disclosure Statement, may have granted an entity (such as a parking garage operator) a lease for an area of common property (typically a parking stall or number of parking stalls) for a period of time. This entity may be under the control of the owner developer. As each individual purchases their strata lot, they may have negotiated and possibly purchased a sub-lease or licence for the exclusive use of a parking stall (or stalls) or storage locker(s).

  1. Limited Common Property (shown on strata plan): If the parking stall or storage locker has been designated as Limited Common Property, it is likely to be identified as such on the strata plan registered at the LTO. Note that the proposed strata plan provided in the Disclosure Statement or the originally filed strata plan may not necessarily suffice; an owner developer may, at any time prior to the first Annual General Meeting amend the strata plan to designate parking stalls as limited common property. There are two other variations to consider:

    • Limited Common Property designated to specific strata lots (Non-Exclusive Use): The strata plan may identify an area of the common property (such as a parkade or parking area) as Limited Common Property for a limited number of strata lots. In this situation only those owners, residents, tenants or visitors of the strata lots as shown on the strata plan may park in this area.
    • Limited Common Property designated to specific strata lots (Short-Term Exclusive Use): Where Limited Common Property is designated for a limited number of strata lots, the strata corporation (or possibly a section) may allocate short term exclusive use of the Limited Common Property to specific strata lots.
Limited Common Property (not shown on strata plan): There may be instances where the limited common property has been designated by way of a ¾ Vote where the strata plan has not been amended. In this instance, the ¾ Vote resolution(s) along with a sketch plan or diagram will be registered at the LTO.

  1. Part of a Strata Lot: In some instances, the parking stall and/or the storage locker has been designated as part of a strata lot.

  1. Separate Strata Lot: In some strata corporations, parking stalls may have been registered as a separate strata lot, and thus may be purchased or sold separately. These strata lots might be owned privately, or by the Strata Corporation. The owners of these strata lots may choose to provide a lease or licence to another party.

If you need to get more specific information , please feel free to contact me directly