I am a tenant in a residential building that has peculiar practices. My rental agency is helpful and friendly and there is a good relationship with my landlord. However, the property management company is where the issues arise. The property management company is also the owner and director of the building.
They have put a lock on the elevator for the residential building, meaning it can be used only when someone from the management company is there and willing to unlock it. I know it works as I’ve used it before.
Secondly, I have a car that I need to travel to work. Although there is ample parking space under the building (it stays mostly empty), as a resident, I do not have a right to park there. There is additional parking at the front of the building that is also leased out.
Can they restrict access to a functioning elevator for the residents of the building and can they deny me parking even when there is ample parking and I am a resident of the building?
From your email, the relationship between your own landlord, the wider owners of the multi-unit development and the day-to-day property management company is not entirely clear. However, my assumption from what you say is that your landlord owns your home but there is a separate company that owns most of the units in the building. This company, through its majority shareholding in the owners’ management company (OMC), controls the OMC and in turn the day-to-day management of services being provided.
You raise two different matters. First, in relation to the elevator, this seems to be a strange situation and it is not obvious why its use has been restricted. The fact that it is in use at certain times implies that there is not a safety concern that has required it to be shut down. It may be that there was previously some antisocial behaviour or vandalism in the elevator, but shutting it down entirely for that reason seems like an over-reaction. For example, a resident might be (or might have a guest who is) a wheelchair user or a person with mobility issues or someone who needs to transport a child in a buggy from one floor to the next.
My recommendation would be to get your rental agency or landlord to contact the property management company in writing (copying you) to ask why this lift is not available to use, and to ask that you be provided with a key for its use.
In most multi-unit developments, there is no general right to park in any free space as most spaces are owned by other owners
The parking is a different situation. In most multi-unit developments, each individual car space is linked to a specific property. As such, assuming your landlord purchased the unit in which you live, they may have purchased a specific numbered space along with it. It is also possible that they did not purchase a car space. If they do not own a space, you will have no entitlement to park in the development.
You may separately be able to rent a space in the development from the owner of another car space, but that is a separate matter. If your landlord does have a space, then you will probably have a right to park in that space only. In most multi-unit developments, there is no general right to park in any free space as most spaces are owned by other owners, even if they do not always have a car parked there.
As such, in relation to the parking, the question for your rental agency and landlord is whether there is a car space linked to your property and what the details are of the space. If this space is in the car park under the building, then you should be provided with a way to access that car park, barring perhaps a restriction having been placed on your landlord accessing their car space due to nonpayment of service charges.
More generally, even if one company owns a majority of units in the development and wishes to run the development itself on a day-to-day basis, if there are also other owners, then it will need to abide by the normal rules of how an OMC is run. This will include holding an agm each year. Your property owner should go to this so that issues such as the ones you have highlighted can be raised at that forum and answered in the interests of all residents. Noting the answers in the minutes of the agm will then be of benefit to all property owners.
Finbar McDonnell is a chartered property manager and a member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland
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