Owners are sometimes under the impression that they have rights of exclusive use of specific parking bays because they purchased the specific bays in terms of their offers to purchase. This is not necessarily the case. Owners should look through their documentation to see whether they have a title deed (a certificate of a real right or a notarial cession) entitling them to the exclusive use of a parking bay. An owner’s title deed to an exclusive use area may be in possession of the bank, if his unit is subject to a mortgage bond.

 

Information pertaining to registered exclusive use areas (parking bays) can

also be obtained from the deeds office electronically. Another simple way to see whether parking bays are registered as exclusive use areas, is to peruse the sectional plans of the scheme, as the exclusive use areas would be indicated on the sectional plans. From the sectional plans it may also appear that the parking bays are common property or the parking bays may even have been registered as sections.

 

Once it is ascertained from the sectional plans that the parking bays are not registered as exclusive use areas, one should proceed to peruse the rules of the body corporate, to ascertain whether the parking bays have been allocated as exclusive use areas to owners in the rules. Parking bays may have been allocated as exclusive use areas in terms of Schedule 1 rules under the Sectional Titles

 

The rules of a body corporate may either be obtained from the trustees or managing agent or from the deeds registry, where it should be filed.

If it appears that parking bays are neither registered as exclusive use areas

nor as sections, it means that the parking bays are still part of the common

property, which is owned by all owners in undivided shares. In accordance

with conduct rule 3(1) no owner or occupier of a section shall park or stand

any vehicle upon the common property, or permit or allow any vehicle to be

parked or stood upon the common property, without the consent of the

trustees in writing.

 

Section 38(i) of the Sectional Titles Act, No 95 of 1986 further entitles the trustees to let portions of the common property, including parking bays, to owners or occupiers of sections for a term shorter than 10 years.

If it appears that individual owners purchased the exclusive use of parking

bays, but they do not hold the exclusive use thereof in terms of a title deed

or according to the rules, the trustees should endeavour to rectify the situation.  

 

The members of the body corporate may create and allocate rights

of exclusive use in respect of parking bays to owners by one of the following

methods:

• The first method requires the authorization of the members of the body

corporate by unanimous resolution, whereupon the exclusive use areas must be delineated on the sectional plan. The sectional plan must be prepared by an architect or land surveyor and then approved by the surveyor-general.

Each parking bay must then be transferred by the body corporate to each owner by notarial cession and subsequently registration must take place in the deeds registry.

• Another method is to create and allocate the exclusive use of parking bays to owners in the management rules or conduct rules of the scheme in accordance with section 27A of the Act. This method entails the preparation of a special rule in terms of which the parking bays are allocated to specific owners with reference to a schedule of allocation and a layout plan to scale. The parking bays must be clearly indicated and distinctively numbered as P1, P2, P3 for example on the layout plan to scale and on the schedule of allocation it should be indicated to whom (which unit) each parking bay is allocated. Once the special rule has been prepared, it has to be approved by the members of the body corporate. To adopt a special management rule requires a unanimous resolution of the members of the body corporate, whilst only a special resolution is required to adopt a special conduct rule. An owner will be entitled to the exclusive use of a parking bay, once the special rule has been filed in the deeds registry.