Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Pakistan

There are different rules for residential apartments in different areas of Pakistan. At some places the ownership of residential flats is transferred by means of registration and at certain places it is only based on allotment. There are many further legal complications that arise because of ownership of residential apartments.

In cases of allotment the original owner of land remains the person owning it before the building is raised on it. In that scenario the persons owning flats are co-owners with the original owner having equal rights in the building. However when the building goes down the land belongs to the owner and for the construction of new building the apartment owners have to pay again.

Coming back to the question, there are many complications regarding the ownership of roof top and area around the apartment building. A practice is that the owner of apartment at ground floor captures the area around the apartment and the owner of top floor captures the top floor. A legal maxim is that "possession is 9/10th of ownership". Legally speaking if a person has possession on the top floor then he is owner of that and if he doesn't have possession then he doesn't have any sole ownership right to it.

If there is any contract of purchase mentioning that the owner of top floor of apartment has the ownership of rooftop also then the scenario is different. However that kind of contract is never usually there. The tower can be placed on the top floor with the permission of land owner in absence of any other kind of ownership of the apartment building. Hope question is cleared. For more do consult me at [email protected]

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