Types and classification of real estate
There are many different ways of classifying real estate. It depends on the type of real estate, the type of use, the applicable legislation, etc. Let us look at the types of property we encounter in real estate brokerage transactions - land, house and commercial property, apartment.
Land property
Land property consists of at least one parcel of land and the buildings and/or structures registered on it. The presence of buildings and structures on land does not necessarily mean that they are part of the property. They may as well belong to another owner. A land property may also include several land units. Therefore, the property and the parcel of land each have their own number. For a property it is the cadastral number, for a parcel it is the cadastral designation. If there is only one parcel of land in the property, the number may be the same as the cadastral designation. When buying land, it is important to familiarise yourself with the permitted and planned uses of the land, the purpose of the land use, encumbrances and other things that may be important to the buyer for their intended use of the land.
House and commercial property
There is often confusion about the difference between a structure, a building and a house. Structures are divided into 2 groups - buildings and civil engineering structures. Buildings are divided into residential houses and non-residential houses (or commercial property in our terminology). Houses are further subdivided into houses with one, two and three or more apartments. The key word in the subdivision of houses is group of residential premises. If a twin house has one group of residential premises, then it is a one-apartment house or a private house. Single-apartment houses are private houses, including individual houses, villas, country houses, summer houses, garden houses, etc. Twin, terraced and semi-detached houses are free-standing or semi-detached houses with two groups of living quarters. Houses with three or more flats can already be considered as apartment houses purchased as commercial property. Commercial property also includes non-residential buildings such as office buildings, commercial buildings, hotels, etc.
Apartment property
An apartment property is a property consisting of a room or group of premises in a house containing several apartment properties. As part of the apartment property, there is also a fractional share in the common ownership of the house and/or land. The common ownership also includes a fractional share of ancillary buildings, if any. If, when purchasing the apartment, no information on the shares in the common ownership of the land can be found in the existing documentation, it can be concluded that the land under the house is not owned and the amount of the ground rent after 30 June 2024 is unclear. The house may not be subdivided into apartment properties and an apartment may also be a certain number of fractional shares. In this case, it is important to understand whether there is any contractual agreement on the use of the common property, including a waiver of the right of first refusal.