A common area is, in real estate or real property law, the "area which is available for use by more than one person..." The common areas are those "within a building that are available for common use by all tenants, (or) groups of tenants and their invitees." In Texas and other parts of the United States, it is "An area inside a housing development that is owned by all residents or by an overall management structure which charges each tenant for maintenance and upkeep."
Common areas often exist in apartments, gated communities, condominiums, cooperatives and shopping malls.
In any situation where there is a tenancy in common, all the tenants in common collectively own the common areas.
This differs from a commons or common land, as used in English law, which is owned by one person, but which may be used by a group of persons.
Read more about Common Area: Examples, Case Law, Residence Halls, Business Spaces, Real Estate Taxation of Common Areas
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or area:
“Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)