Differences between exclusive rights over the apartments and rights over buildings

Please, explain briefly but as clearly as possible the scope of the rights relating (exclusively) to the apartments and the ones relating to the building or to the communal elements owned jointly.

The nature of a tenement means that the rights and obligations of the owners of the individual apartments can be very much interdependent. In the majority of instances the break-off title deeds for individual apartments in a tenement will narrate what is owned exclusively and what is to be held in common.

Similarly, burdens with regard to upkeep and the basis on which liability is to be apportioned between individual apartments will also be detailed. In some instances such rights and burdens will be contained in a deed of conditions registered by the owner of the tenement before any apartments are sold.

Where title to an apartment is registered in the Land Register, the title sheet for each apartment will reflect those rights and burdens contained in the deed of conditions and/or the break-off conveyance for the apartment in question.

However, it remains the duty of a solicitor acting in the purchase of an apartment within a tenement to check the titles for the other flats to see whether there is consistency in the apportionment of maintenance obligations etc.