2014 World Bank
Land and Poverty Conference
Incrementally securing urban tenure:
Promising practices,
March 24-27, 2014
1818 Street NW
Washington DC
Vertical Title Schemes to Address the
Urban Sprawl Issue
Pauline MALAPLATE
Conseil Supérieur du Notariat
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Challenging Issue: Urban Sprawl
- outward spreading of cities
- conversion of agricultural land to residential
use.
How to make a better use of a limited resource ?
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Densification
- higher density cities are more sustainable than
low density cities.
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Public services
Transportation
- land use planning is not enough to increase the
urban density.
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Vertical Urban Development
- simple and appropriate title scheme for vertical
urban development in developing and emerging
countries
- designing land rights that allow vertical
development.
- designing association rules to manage vertical
housing.
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Cityscape of Paris
- the City of Paris has the highest urban density in
the Developed countries
- more than 21,000 inhabitants/sqr. Km
- even 42,000 in some parts of the city.
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History of commonhold in France
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1804 Napoleonic Code (art. 664) stipulated that properties
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could share a common building or plot governed by a housing
collective,
while the airspace and floor space within the individual units still be
considered privately owned.
Differed from traditional English property law which required the legal
owner of the residential unit to also own the surrounding land.
- improved by Notaries in the 1860s' in Paris
- regulations in 1938 revised in 1965
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Lessons Learned
- 150 years of Case Law
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thousands of cases to find out the problems and
design proper answers
trial and error process
- this expertise help to save time when drafting:
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new regulation
contracts templates relating to commonhold
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Interprofessional Group
- Notaries
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> drafting
- land surveyors and/or architects
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> description of the building and units
- property managers
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> management issues
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Framework Legal Tools
- Framework legal tools that can be adapted to a
country-to-country basis.
- Basis of discussion to tailor a solution that fits in
the country legal system.
- Purpose:
-
make it possible (regulation)
make it happen (implementation)
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Commonhold
- system of freehold tenure of a unit
- within a multi-occupancy building,
- with shared ownership and responsibility for
common services.
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Setting up the Commonhold
- deed of division of the ownership into several
fractions known as "units”
- registered at the Land Registry: each unit is
identified in the public records
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Association
The unit-holders collectively constitute a single legal
entity: the unit-holders' association.
- Purpose of the association:
-
-
to preserve the building,
to maintain and manage the common parts,
to safeguard the rights relating to the property or the
commonhold,
and to carry out all operations required in the common
interest.
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Land
- Ownership of the land is not a requirement.
- Commonhold may be based on:
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long-term leases,
volumetric divisions (on public equipment's,
commercial real estate, … )
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Units
Each unit comprises a private area and a share of the
common parts.
- This share:
-
-
-
is expressed by a fraction.
is in proportion to the relative value of each private area,
in relation to the value of all of the units.
The method of calculation, duly determined by a
surveyor, is stipulated in the deed of division setting
up the commonhold.
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Common Parts
- General common parts:
-
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undivided property of all the unit-holders
used by all of them.
- Special common parts:
-
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undivided property of several unit-holders
reserved for their use.
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Commonhold regulations
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intended use of the property (private areas and common parts)
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allocation of responsibility for the charges among the unit-holders,
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rules relating to the enjoyment, use and maintenance of the private areas,
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rules relating to the use and maintenance of the common parts,
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rules relating to the operation and governance of the commonhold,
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obligations of the unit-holders to contribute to the common service
charges,
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method of payment and method of collecting the sums due,
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votes of each unit-holder corresponding to the share of the common parts
attached to each unit belonging to that unit-holder.
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Rights and obligations of the unit-holders
- unrestricted enjoyment of the private area and the common
parts, according to:
-
the commonhold regulations,
the rights of the other unit-holders
the intended use of the property.
- contribution to all the common service charges
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the costs of maintenance, repairs, preservation of the property,
property management and the governance of the commonhold
in proportion to the fraction of the common parts attached to each unit
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Commonhold governance
- Unit-Holders association
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General Meeting
- Board of the association
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Management monitoring
- Commonhold manager
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Day-to-day management
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Transfer of Units
- Information of the new right holder
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Technical
Financial
- Obligations of the present right holder
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Account’s settlement
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Elinor Ostrom’s Design Principles
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Clearly defined boundaries
Rules regarding the appropriation of common resources
Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resources
appropriators to participate in the decision-making process
Effective and accountable monitoring
Scale of graduated sanctions for resources appropriators
Self-determination of the community recognized by higherlevel authorities
Mechanism of Conflict Resolution
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Delivering the Expertise
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Bottom Up approach
Participative design
Low Tech Solutions
As simple as possible
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The END
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