Do deeds have car space number on them?

the_syco wrote: »

Once it gets sold, I'd wonder if it'll effectiely reset anything you've done so far against the current owners? Would advise pressing the matter now.

How, it's nobody's to sell but the ops

I suggest that you or your solicitor write to the estate agents & the person selling the apartment stating that the space is yours ASAP.

Vestiapx wrote: »

If that was the case is it possible that he dosen't have the sole right and that another person also equally has the right. When a property is purchased the land is drawn out on a folio and it's clear whose land is who's. The folio for the areas surrounding are checked. But saying in a deed that parking space 53 is associated with apartment 12 isn't unique if there isn't a drawing it's a matter of definition and if there is, well what's to stop the same space being drawn on the lease for 4 or 5 apartments.

Not exercising ones rights upon purchase can clearly lead to other parties selling your parking space. Rightly or wrongly I might add.

I'm wondering if the space is now sold a third time how easy any comeback will be for the new owner.

Well any of these apartment ‘sales’ are actually long term leases, and the car park space is probably in the same boat.

It’s all going to land back to the OMC as the landlord and manager of the complex to get it resolved. That assumes this entity is solvent, and functional.

As a member of the OMC the OP may end up paying her share for the resolution of the whole saga out of her managment fees!

I would begin parking in it for a start. Putting up a bollard / space keeper is likely in contravention of the lease - I wouldn’t do that yet.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It absolutely is. The longer you do nothing about letting other people use your land in the genuine belief that they are entitled to do so, the harder it becomes to assert your rights against them. If the OP believes that he has the exclusive rights to this space, he needs to let everyone who thinks they have any rights know about his position, and he needs to vigorously object to any use of the space that is inconsistent with his claim to exclusive rights.

They have though.
The management company are well aware.

They should be using the space right away, leaving it empty is ridiculous to be honest.

Solicitor is paid to solve the issue

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's not enough to tell the mangement company. It's not the management company's job to relay this information to the owner of Flat Y, or to arbitrate a dispute between the OP and the owner of Flat Y, etc.

I'd argue that the management company are the ones to tell Flat Y. Remember the management company issue documentation as part of the sale of a property in a managed development, they would have vouched for the accuracy of the data provided. So the management company are responsible for this situation, at least in part.

to99 wrote: »

Minor update. I heard back from the solicitor of the apartment that is sale agreed and the car space included in that sale is NOT the same number as mine.

So, that's one hurdle cleared.

The numbers are however, very similar.

Makes sense. Perhaps they did the same as me. I was given apartment 20 and space 20 but on signing I asked to switch to space 21 and the contract was altered accordingly (and my solicitor got an undertaking that apartment 21 did not appear on anyone else's contract!).

Tip for apartment purchasers: avoid ones with ducting above or a pillar adjacent.

to99 wrote: »

Yeah but the circumstances seem to be that the person currently occupying my space allegedly bought it off someone else in the building who claims they owned my space, when (allegedly) they didn't.

So, the "new owner" is not going to believe that they don't own the space as they think they bought it fair and square from someone else in the building. So they aren't going to go easily.

Now that I say it out loud... it sounds ludicrous :pac: I'm dying to see what document they have as title to my car space.

People who buy stolen stuff , don’t get to keep it. Their solicitor should have checked ownership before he let the sale go through

fiachraX wrote: »

Is there any public record where it's possible to see a copy of someone else's deeds - so in the case of this apartment what was in each contract for successive sales? Or is it only the owner (or bank if mortgaged) that ever has those?

It would depend on whether the land is registered or not. Many apartment blocks are not on registered land.

fiachraX wrote: »

Ah right - thanks. But if it was something like a house that was registered, the public registration would show the full set of deeds down through all the sales, not just a folio map?

The contracts for each sale would not be shown anywgaere nor retained by anybody for loner than 12 years. The whole point of registration is so that there no no, or much reduced need to look behind the registration. The land registry has a mapping system with a diagramatic representation of the registered land as shown on the ordinance survey. This is of little use in the case of multi unit buildings.
The Registry of deeds has memorials for all deeds dealing with the property since the first deed was registered. the registry of Deeds only applies to about 85% of titles as the Registry of deeds is being phased out.

OK, the word "licensee" is waving a big red flag at me, and jumping up and down. And blowing a vuvuzela.

It suggests to me that, while you may own your flat, possibly you don't own your car space; you just have a licence (which is a fancy word for "permission") to use a car space that belongs to someone else (presumably, the holding company for the block of flats) to park you car in.

In which case, your rights are exactly those defined by the licence — nothing more and nothing less. So the licence could well say "you have the exclusive use of whatever space we assign to you, but we can change your assigned space at any time if we need or want to".

I think it would be implied (if not expressly stated) that they would have to tell you about any change of assigned space. And from your recollection there has been "No correspondence about changes to car spaces". But in post #11 you told us that they identified a space for you (which you don't consider suitable as a car parking space). The dispute may come down to whether the terms of the licence allow them to assign that space to you, in substitution for the space that was originally assigned to you but which you didn't use and which, we infer, they may have assigned to someone else in the intervening years.

Now, I'm reading a lot into the one word "licensee", and your solicitor may be telling you something different. In which case, listen to your solicitor; he has read the entirety of the title documents, and I'm only looking at one word. But it's not unusual for the nature of a flat-owners interest in a car parking bay to be different from the nature of their interest in their flat.

As an owner you should be part of the management process, do you attend board meeting etc?
Hope you get sorted

to99 wrote: »

Thanks for that.

I'm waiting to hear back now from MC.

But starting to lose hope.

Re post #11 The Mc stated that they had no documentation that suggested we owned a space so they told us to just use the bad space. That's when I went and got the deeds to see what the documentation did say about our car space number.

If your hope is that the MC will solve your problem for you, abandon it. They will not. They just want a quiet life, and if you sit back and wait for them to solve your problem, that's quiet enough for them.

You have to solve this problem yourself.

And your beef is not with the management company; it's with the person who is using the car space to which you have an exclusive licence. The MC may have "stated that they had no documentation that suggested we owned a space", but if I understand matters correctly you do have documentation. The documentation shows that you were granted (at least) an exclusive licence for the use of car space no. X. Even if MC (or some other entity) has a power to vary that and give you a different space, or something of the kind, so far as you are concerned that power has never been exercised, and you are still entitled to the exclusive use of space no. X, and you need to deal directly with the person who is using that space and insist that they stop.

Only by this means will you find out what makes them think they have the right to the space, and whether their right is, in fact, stronger than yours. But until you're shown that it is, as far as you're concerned, it isn't.

I get that confrontation of this kind is unpleasant. Some people find it very unpleasant, and you may be one of them. But you paid €25,000 for this space, and heaven knows what it is worth now; do not let it go without a fight.

You really do need to take the advice of Peregrinus in his last post and confront whoever is using this space.

And I would certainly consider parking my car in that space until the matter is resolved. As far as your documentation states, that space is yours to use.

The people who can testify that Space No. 1 was sold by the owner of Flat X to the owner of Flat Y are the owners of Flat X and Flat Y. On the face of it, the management company wouldn't have been a party to that transaction; how would they know about it?

They'd know about it, of course, if the terms of the licence required them to be notified of any transfer of a car space, or required their consent, or something of the kind. Which give's rise to a couple of questions:

1. Do the terms of the licence say anything like that? You've got a copy of the licence; read it.

2. If they do, obviously the MC is supposed to keep some kind of record or register of who is licensed to use which space; otherwise what is the point of notifying them of transfers? But, if they are, they should have a record of what space was originally licensed to you, and of what space was originally licensed to the owner of Flat X. The fact that they were apparently notified of the transfer of space no 1 and they didn't say "Hang on! That's not your space!" suggests that they have have had some reason, from their own records, for thinking that Flat X did have Space no. 1, and so did have the right to transfer it. I would press them on this.

3. A distinct possiblity is that, over the years, their original records of who had what space were lost, and they are now no longer sure about that. In that case, when Flat X comes along and says "I have transferred my space, Space no. 1, to Flat Y" they treat that as evidence that Space no. 1 had, up to that point, been allocated to Flat X. Obviously, Flat X was using it with no objection from anyone else. Also, whatever documents Flat X showed to Flat Y were sufficient to persuade Flat Y that, yes, Flat X could transfer Space no 1 to them, and they could safely lay out €25k on it.

4. These aren't wildly unreasonable assumptions to make. So I think there's a sporting chance that there is documentation out there to suggest that Flat X was the original owner of Space no. 1. If there is, you need to find out about it.

5. There is no point in pressing the management company on this. My hypothesis is that, whatever documentation or copy documentation the management company may once have had, they have lost. So they can't show it to you. Plus, this confusion probably arose because of a stuff-up on the management company's part; they lost the records. Or, they failed to take possession of the records in the first place, as a result of which they are now lost. Either way, don't expect the management company to be co-operative in bringing to light their own incompetence.

6. You have to pursue the person who is now using that space. Show him copies of the documents that suggest the space is yours, and make him produce copies of the documents which, he thinks, show that the space is his.

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

Can the management company change the car park space to another one (when the title deeds do not identify a particular car space on title map but deed only states verbally in title document that there is a car park space?

Depends on what it says about this in the deeds, and particularly in the car park licence. And we don't know what it says about this.

Yyhhuuu wrote: »

I'm pretty certain that the Deed does not have a map with a designated car space, rather a car space to be designated by the management company. I bought apartment 3 as an investment. The surface car space number 3 was in a good location but a car was parked there. When I enquired I was told I was to use car space 23 in a less desirable location as it further away from my apartment and on a slope. I think what happened is somebody on the management company changed it to get their hands on the better located space. I did not query it as I'm not living there. My concern is it may devalue the apartment although not by much. I just thought it was sharp practice.

If the time you were told to use space 23 was the first time the management company designated a space for you, then nobody has changed anything. Space no. 3 was never designated to you, and was never yours.