Opinion ID: 2584948
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Land Associated with Black's Condominium Unit Is a Limited Common Element Appurtenant to Black's Condominium Unit.

Text: The term condominium refers to a form of ownership in which a buyer owns a unit with an additional property ownership interest in the development's common property. [9] This common property can be either a common element [10] or a limited common element. [11] Limited common elements are portions of the common property that are reserved for the use of one or more, but less than all, owners. [12] Limited common elements, like common elements, are owned by the condominium association members themselves. [13] In the condominium form of ownership, the owners own their property individually in fee simple or other fee interest. . . . In addition, however, the owners also have an undivided interest in the common property, an interest that is appurtenant to the unit. [14] Black contends that because the declaration and plans on file at the district recorder's office do not classify the land associated with his condominium unit as a limited common element, it was inappropriate for the Municipality to tax him for that land. We disagree that the declaration and recorded plans fail to classify the land in question. The recorded plans, declaration, and Black's own testimony about actual use all support the conclusion that the land associated with Black's condominium unit is a limited common element. Three Whitestone Estates development plans are on record with the district recorder's office. Plats and plans are a part of the declaration and are required for all common interest communities except cooperatives. [15] Together with the declaration, the plans provide a legally sufficient description of the real estate included in the common interest community. [16] Black urges us to disregard all three of the recorded plans which he considers illegible. But close scrutiny of one of the plans allows the reader to make out a legible heading, titled Limited Common Interest Lot Area, which appears to allocate 39,865 square feet, or approximately 0.92 acres, to Black's unit. This allocation is consistent with the large plan, a large (24 by 36), legible, but unrecorded, plan that the Municipality produced before the Board hearing. [17] Neither party disputes that the large plan was not recorded and therefore forms no part of the legal description of the common interest community; however, it is a legible development plan for Whitestone Estates and allocates the same amount of land to Black as the recorded plan  39,865 square feet, or 0.92 acres in the form of a limited common interest lot. The large plan is persuasive evidence because it mirrors the allocation in at least one of the recorded plans. Furthermore, while parts of the declaration are ambiguously worded, at least two sections indicate that the land associated with Black's condominium unit was a limited common element. [18] First, the declaration includes the following provision: The Declarant expressly reserves, for the benefit of each Unit Owner, an exclusive easement for use of those areas depicted on the Plans or otherwise described herein as Limited Common Elements, as assigned to each Unit Owner for his or her numbered unit. There would have been no reason to reserve an exclusive easement for use of those areas . . . assigned to each Unit Owner for his or her numbered unit if those areas were intended to be common elements. Common elements are owned by (and accessible to) all condominium unit owners; limited common elements are owned by all condominium unit owners, but are only accessible to the owner of the appurtenant condominium unit. [19] It is therefore reasonable to infer that this passage refers to the land associated with individual condominium units. Additionally, the declaration's landscaping provision supports a conclusion that the lot associated with Black's condominium unit is a limited common element. The declaration states that [a]ll Limited Common Elements must be landscaped following construction of the Unit to which [they are] attached, and within the time period mandated by the Board. The notion that the limited common elements are attached to a particular condominium unit, and that those elements must be landscaped, supports the inference that the land surrounding each condominium unit is a limited common element associated with the condominium unit to which it is attached. Finally, Black's own testimony about actual use supports our conclusion that the land in question is a limited common element. [20] In his testimony before the Board, Black indicated that he, as is common practice in a common interest community, would need to obtain permission from the condominium association in order to build a greenhouse fifty feet behind his condominium unit. But when the Board asked whether other condominium unit owners would be able to put a greenhouse on . . . the back of what is marked as [Black's] property, Black responded that although theoretically they could do so [i]f they got the approval of the association, because Black knew everyone in the neighborhood, [he was] pretty confident that that would not happen. This testimony reflects unit owners' treatment of the land associated with their condominium units as limited common elements. Based on the record as a whole, we are convinced that the land in question is a limited common element.