Impact of ownership and architectural design on property disputes in multi-owned buildings

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2021.102371Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The impact of ownership and architectural factors of multi-owned buildings (MOB) on disputes has been empirically explored.

  • A method for measuring the intensity of disputes on MOB owners has been developed.

  • Machine learning on tribunal case records has been performed.

  • Six factors of MOBs with significant impacts on the dispute intensity have been identified.

Abstract

With the trend towards increased property disputes in multi-owned buildings (MOBs), a greater focus is needed on dispute management to prevent huge litigation costs, high-stress levels, and disharmony in urban communities. Existing studies have recognized that pinpointing sources of disputes allows proactively minimizing dispute occurrence and influence. Ownership structure and architectural design of MOBs are viewed as the critical sources, but the effects of their detailed aspects on disputes remain unclear. This study aims to identify ownership and architectural factors of MOBs impacting on the incidence and intensity of disputes within communities in the property. It first defines crucial MOB factors causing disputes and a measurement model of the dispute intensity in the context of Victoria, Australia. It then investigates relationships between the factors and the intensity by employing Boosted Classification Tree, a machine learning technique, for 101 tribunal cases. This research confirms six factors highly associated with the dispute intensity: design of common areas, ownership space boundaries, ownership space arrangement, allocation of co-ownership share, design of individual units, and accessory spaces for each unit. The results shed light on MOB factors to be controlled at planning stages for mitigating disputes and their influence.

Introduction

Response to disputes in multi-owned buildings (MOBs) is a global challenge for ensuring harmonious living environments in urban areas (Blandy et al., 2010). With rapid urbanization, the sharp rise of the population in MOBs has increased property disputes among owners, which negatively affect the living experience and well-being of communities in the buildings (Leshinsky et al., 2012; Easthope et al., 2014). The approach for managing disputes has received considerable attention, especially dispute avoidance – a logical response to prevent high cost, time, and emotional concern in dispute resolution (Leshinsky & Mouat, 2012). This approach has its ground on the fact that a significant amount of disputations can be reduced by addressing root causes (Kumaraswamy, 1997; Christensen & Wallace, 2006). The identification of dispute sources provides a basis for controlling them to minimize dispute occurrence and influence.

MOBs generally take an ownership form commonly known as Strata title or Condominium – a complex arrangement of exclusive rights to use individual units by separate owners and shared rights to common areas and services jointly held by groups of unit owners (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2019; Dupuis et al., 2010; Altmann et al., 2018; Paulsson, 2007). The form intertwined with building structures creates private communal living where the close proximity of neighbors and a sharing of property interests exist. It requires a high degree of physical, legal, social, and financial affiliation from owners, along with collective decision-making on managing common properties (Bailey et al., 1997; Fisher & McPhail, 2014). A significant likelihood of disputes among owners on their financial relations, behaviors, and different levels of satisfaction is inherent in MOB living (Hastings et al., 2006; Easthope & Randolph, 2018, pp. 112–126). Disputes are defined as unsettled disagreements (conflicts) between different parties that require resolution by third-party adjudication (Yates, 2003; McGeorge et al., 2007). This research focuses on disputes among owners and owner groups associated with MOB use and management, stemming from issues in ownership rights, responsibilities, and restrictions (RRRs).

Recent studies highlighted poor ownership structure and architectural design as one of the major sources of disputes in MOBs (Goodman & Douglas, 2008; Johnston & Reid, 2013; Gao, 2015). The conflicts are likely to develop into disputes when (1) owners' needs fail to meet since their rights to use and enjoy MOBs are infringed by ownership form or building design and functions, (2) the imbalanced distribution of RRRs provides owners with unfair powers and obligations to managing buildings, or (3) owners confuse the 3D extent of their ownership RRRs, and then misuse or mismanage MOBs (Cradduck, 2013; Sherry, 2018; Easthope et al., 2012; Shin et al., 2020). As planning factors, the ownership and architectural MOB forms outline the living environment and act as starting points of conflicts among owners; it contributes to dispute incidence, together with the owner group's socio-economic and behavioral characteristics.

Despite its vital role in dispute outbreaks, the impact of ownership and architectural MOB forms on the dispute within owner groups have not been examined sufficiently. Existing research on disputes in MOBs has centered on exploring social and human factors, such as owners' collective actions in managing MOB (Ho & Gao, 2013), owners group's management proficiency (Christudason, 2008; Lujanen, 2010), and dispute resolution skill (Douglas & Goodman, 2018, pp. 213–230). In addition, relevant studies tend to narrowly and fragmentally address certain planning factors that affect owners' disagreement and dissatisfaction and cause disputes, likewise ownership rights (Ho et al., 2006; Johnston, 2016), structures of owner groups (Wai-Chung Lai & Yik-Long Chan, 2004; Christudason, 2004), design of communal spaces (Zhu, 2015; Sajan, 2015), and layout and design of dwelling (Buys & Miller, 2012). It takes theoretical approaches using results from literature review, interviews, and case studies; partial explanations based on specific cases from scattered perspectives are insufficient to generalize the impact of individual MOB factors on the disputes.

The lack of understanding of ownership structure and architectural design of MOBs relevant to disputes limits adequate consideration on them in the subdivision and design practice (Easthope et al., 2014; Cradduck, 2013). It has impeded opportunities to minimize disputes and their negative influence before the costly, time-consuming, and stressful dispute resolution procedure (Christensen & Wallace, 2006). Empirical research on identifying common sources of MOB disputes and their impacts is demanded to facilitate proactive dispute avoidance in urban living. To fill the knowledge gap, this paper aims to identify ownership and architectural factors of MOBs to be controlled at planning stages by investigating their impacts on the occurrence and intensity of disputes within the owner groups. As an initial study to explore the sources of disputes, this research focuses on the connection between planning factors, excluding social and human factors. In addition, the MOB system in Victoria, Australia, which is one form of strata title, is exemplified for in-depth analysis of ownership and architectural forms.

Section snippets

MOB system in Victoria

Even though MOBs in many countries share certain contexts, their detailed structures vary since each jurisdiction has a unique legal framework (Paulsson, 2007). All strata title systems generate a property with four components: individual ownership of a Lot (flat or unit), communal ownership of common property (CP, all building parts not defined as Lots), membership of owners corporation (OC), and by-laws (Sherry, 2016); they use strata or subdivision plans to declare the divided ownership (

Research method

In line with the research aim, an empirical approach is established to generalize the extent to which ownership and architectural factors causing disputes impact on the intensity of disputes (DI). The 12 factors triggering disputation that were discussed in section 2.3 are defined as independent variables. The DI level is construed as a dependent variable; it is measured by a method proposed by this research. The investigated impacts are used as a basis for identifying the MOB factors necessary

Measurement of dispute intensity

This study measures the DI as a dependent variable affected by MOB factors in section 2.3. The DI, here, refers to a degree of the direct influence of occurred disputes on owners and OCs in MOBs. There is no consensus about methods for measuring the DI in MOBs, but many models suggested in the building sectors adopt a risk assessment approach (Kumaraswamy, 1997; Kumar et al., 2017; Molenaar et al., 2000; Aibinu, 2009; Gebken & Gibson, 2006). These models perceive disputes as potential risks –

Data collection

All data for measuring independent and dependent variables regarding 101 VCAT cases were collected from written orders of each case, including case outlines, catchwords, and reason for decision. As depicted in Fig. 3, independent variables were quantified by assigning numeric values according to the decision reason. Data for the DI parameters were summarized by extracting specific keywords in the written orders.

Discussion

This research identified 12 ownership and architectural MOB factors causing disputes and examined their importance and interaction on determining the intensity of disputes within owner groups in MOBs, applying Boosted Classification Trees. The results from 101 dispute cases in Victoria connote that all factors are closely interrelated and have statistically meaningful impacts on the DI. It infers that the integrated consideration of building subdivision and design is necessary to minimize the

Conclusion

As the frequency of property disputes in MOBs increases, a proper understanding of their causes becomes essential to minimize the disputations and their influence proactively. Ownership structure and architectural design of MOBs are regarded as leading causes of disputes; however, the generalized factors and their implications on the dispute have not been examined sufficiently. To fill this knowledge gap, this research aims to identify ownership and architectural factors of MOBs impacting on

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jihye Shin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Investigation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Validation, Writing - original draft. Abbas Rajabifard: Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing. Mohsen Kalantari: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing. Behnam Atazadeh: Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by Australian Research Council, grant number LP160100292. The authors acknowledge the support of project partners: Land Use Victoria, Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) and City of Melbourne. Special thanks to Dr Ali Mahmoudi for providing his constructive comments in statistical modeling. The authors emphasize that the views expressed in this article are the authors' alone.

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