Storage rooms and parking

A storage room and a parking space look like a detail right up to the moment you need to sell one, pay tax on it, or defend it from a neighbour. In Lithuania they can be set up in three entirely different legal ways, and standing in the basement all three look identical. The difference is visible only in the register extract and in the contract.

Three different legal arrangements

First: the space is an independent item of real property with its own unique number. Second: you acquire a share of larger premises — an underground garage, say — and use one specific bay under an agreement among the co-owners. Third: the space is a common object, and the right to use one specific storage room is allocated to your flat by a decision or by house rules.

All three are lawful. But they answer four questions differently: can it be sold separately from the flat, can it be mortgaged, who pays the tax and the upkeep, and what can you do when somebody else parks in your bay.

A separate object

Where a storage room or a garage box is a separate object, it has its own unique number, its own area and its own register entry. This is the clearest arrangement: ownership is unambiguous, it is easy to defend, and the object can be sold or mortgaged on its own.

The consequences follow from that. A separate object has its own taxable value and enters the real property tax calculation separately. It also has to appear in the purchase contract as a separate object: if it is not in the contract, it has not been bought, whatever was said out loud.

A share of larger premises

Underground parking bays are often set up as a share of one large premises: you are a co-owner of those premises and use a specific bay under an agreement or a decision of the co-owners.

Two documents matter here. The first is the register entry recording your share and its size. The second is the agreement on use, naming your particular bay. Without the second document you own a share of a space but no right to a specific place in it — which is exactly where disputes with neighbours come from. On resale the share normally travels with the flat, but that has to be written in the contract.

Allocated use of common property

The third arrangement is the loosest and the most fragile: the space is the owners' common property, and your right to use a specific storage room comes from an owners' decision or from the manager's rules. You hold no ownership of a separate room.

This works for as long as the building agrees. The difficulty is that a right granted by a decision can be revisited by a decision. Such a storage room cannot be sold separately or mortgaged, and on a sale of the flat it does not transfer by itself unless the rules provide for it.

What to check, in the contract and on site

Three checks before signature. One: in the register extract, see whether the storage room and the bay are separate objects, shares, or common property. Two: in the contract they must be described exactly as the register describes them, with numbers and areas — the phrase “with a storage room”, with nothing identified, proves nothing later. Three: on site, confirm it is the same space and that it matches the plan, by plan in hand and not only by the number painted on the wall.

Ask about costs separately: who pays for garage ventilation, lighting, the gate and its repairs, and how that sum reaches your monthly charge. At handover, write into the handover record how many keys, fobs or codes you receive.

This article is general information and is not legal advice. What applies to your case is determined by the register data and by the text of your contract.