A parking bay or utility room in a Malaysian strata development is common property only if the certified strata plan and the approved Schedule of Parcels say so. How the space is used, who has been using it, and what residents were told at the sales gallery do not change its legal classification. A High Court decision delivered on 27 July 2026 applied that principle to a Kepong development, holding that a 15.42 sq m utility room and 115 parking bays on Level 1 remained the property of their registered owner rather than the joint property of all parcel owners. For anyone buying a new launch, the practical takeaway is narrow and useful: the strata documents, not the brochure, decide what you collectively own.
What the 2026 High Court decision actually decided
The case was brought by a management corporation together with 94 residential and commercial unit owners. They argued that a utility room and 115 parking bays had in substance always been common property, and had been carved out by the developer before being sold on to a third-party company. Justice Anand Ponnudurai dismissed the claim.
The reasoning was documentary rather than impressionistic. The approved Schedule of Parcels and the certified strata plans identified the utility room as an individual parcel and the 115 bays as accessory parcels. Once a space carries that designation in the approved documents, the court held, it cannot be reclassified in law as something else. A separate allegation that the strata title had been procured by misleading the planning authorities failed on evidence: the plaintiffs called no witnesses from City Hall, the Land and Mines Office or the survey department, so the court would not disturb the registered title under section 340(2) of the National Land Code.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Judgment date | 27 July 2026 |
| Court | High Court, before Justice Anand Ponnudurai |
| Disputed utility room | 15.42 sq m (about 166 sq ft), Level 1 |
| Disputed parking bays | 115, held as accessory parcels |
| Plaintiffs | Management corporation plus 94 unit owners |
| Parking provided across the development | More than 900 bays, above the approved development order requirement |
| Costs ordered against the management corporation | RM60,000 |
| Costs against the 94 individual owners | None ordered |
Parcel, accessory parcel and common property are three different things
Malaysian strata law splits a development into categories that most buyers never see distinguished during a sales pitch. The Strata Titles Act 1985 treats an accessory parcel as a parcel shown in the strata plan as an accessory parcel and used in conjunction with a main parcel. Common property is defined residually: it is whatever is left of the land once every parcel, including every accessory parcel, has been accounted for.
That residual definition is the whole game. Common property is not a list of amenities somebody drew up. It is a remainder. Anything successfully carved out as a parcel or accessory parcel before the strata plan was certified is, by definition, outside it.
| Category | Typical examples | Who owns it | Transferable on its own? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parcel | Your unit; sometimes a standalone utility or retail lot | The individual purchaser named on the strata title | Yes |
| Accessory parcel | Car park bays, air-conditioner ledges, storerooms, yards attached to a unit | Owner of the main parcel it is tied to | Not independently — it moves with the main parcel |
| Common property | Lobbies, corridors, lifts, pool deck, gym, landscaping, external walls | All parcel owners jointly, managed by the JMB or management corporation | No |
Why the Schedule of Parcels outranks how a space is used
Buyers reasonably assume that a space everyone walks through, parks in, or pays to maintain must belong to everyone. Malaysian courts have repeatedly declined to reason that way, treating the certified strata plan as the definitive reference for classification. The Kepong decision follows that line.
The point was tested directly. The plaintiffs argued that because the bays were being rented out commercially, they had functionally stopped being accessory parcels. The court disagreed: running a parking business on an accessory parcel changes the use, not the title. Long-standing resident access, informal arrangements with a previous management team, and what a salesperson said at launch all sit on the same side of that line — they describe practice, not ownership.
What this means when you are buying a new launch
At the point of sale, the Schedule of Parcels is usually already prepared, because it must be approved before the sale and purchase agreement can properly describe what you are buying. That gives you a document to ask for, and it is the single most useful document for questions about parking.
Three situations are worth separating:
- Bays allotted to your unit as accessory parcels. These appear in the Schedule of Parcels against your parcel number. They are yours, they transfer when you sell, and no management committee can reassign them.
- Bays retained by the developer or sold to a third party. Legally possible, and the Kepong outcome shows a court will uphold it if the documents are in order. What you get in return is a development where some parking is a commercial operation rather than a shared amenity.
- Visitor and accessible bays. These are typically part of common property, and their number is fixed by the approved development order rather than by goodwill. In the Kepong case the development had more than 900 bays in total, exceeding what the development order required, which is why the parallel complaint about insufficient visitor parking also failed.
Our new launch condominium checklist covers the wider set of pre-signing questions; the parking allocation question belongs near the top of it. If you are still weighing a new project against a completed one, new launch versus subsale sets out where the documentation differs — in a completed development the strata plan already exists and can be inspected directly.
The documents to ask for before you sign
Ask for these in writing, and keep the responses:
- Schedule of Parcels — shows the parcels, accessory parcels and the share units attached to each. This is the document that answers the parking question.
- Approved layout or strata plan for the car park levels — tells you which bays are numbered as accessory parcels and which are not.
- The SPA schedules — the parcel description in the agreement should match the Schedule of Parcels. A mismatch is worth raising before signing, not after delivery.
- Development order conditions on parking provision — sets the floor for visitor and accessible bays.
Buyers new to the process may want to start with how to buy a new launch property in Malaysia, which walks through the sequence from booking to vacant possession, and home loan approval rates in 2026 for the financing side.
Where product type changes the picture
Classification questions get sharper in mixed developments, because a single podium can serve residential parcels, retail parcels and a hotel operator at once. A serviced apartment sitting on commercial title may share its car park levels with retail tenants, and the split between residential accessory parcels and commercially operated bays is set in the strata documents rather than negotiated later. Dual key layouts raise a related question: whether the second key comes with its own bay, or whether both halves share one accessory parcel.
Land tenure sits on a separate axis from all of this — tenure tells you how long the title runs, not what falls inside common property. A development can be freehold and still have most of its parking sold off as parcels.
What the ruling does not settle
This was a first-instance decision on a specific set of documents, and it can be appealed. It does not hold that developers may carve out anything they like: the court accepted the classification because the approved Schedule of Parcels and certified strata plans supported it, and it left open that a registration shown to be legally defective could still be challenged. The fraud allegation failed on missing evidence rather than on principle.
One limitation on this article is worth stating plainly. The analysis here is drawn from reported accounts of the decision, not from a publicly circulated written judgment, so the detailed reasoning may be fuller than the reported summary suggests. The statutory framework it turns on — the definitions in the Strata Titles Act 1985 and section 340(2) of the National Land Code — is public and can be checked directly.
Structural questions like this one sit alongside the delivery-risk questions raised by the Build Then Sell debate and the supply picture in the Q1 2026 overhang data. If you are comparing projects, our KLCC and Bukit Jalil area pages list what is currently on the market, and the full set sits under all properties.
Frequently asked questions
Is my parking bay common property in Malaysia?
Only if the certified strata plan and approved Schedule of Parcels leave it outside every parcel and accessory parcel. Bays numbered as accessory parcels belong to the owner of the main parcel they are attached to. Visitor and accessible bays are usually common property. The documents decide, not the signage or the habit of use.
What is an accessory parcel under the Strata Titles Act 1985?
An accessory parcel is a parcel shown in the strata plan as an accessory parcel and used or intended to be used together with a main parcel. Car park bays, storerooms, air-conditioner ledges and attached yards are the common examples. An accessory parcel cannot be dealt with separately from the main parcel it serves.
Can a management corporation take over parking bays that were sold to a third party?
Not by resolution alone. In the 2026 Kepong decision the High Court held that 115 bays registered as accessory parcels belonged to their registered owner, dismissed the management corporation’s claim, and ordered it to pay RM60,000 in costs. A challenge would need to show the registration itself was legally defective.
Does renting out parking bays change their legal status?
No. The court specifically rejected the argument that operating a commercial parking business converts accessory parcels into common property. Changing how a space is used does not change what the strata plan says it is.
Which documents show whether a space is common property?
The approved Schedule of Parcels and the certified strata plan. Between them they identify every parcel and accessory parcel; common property is whatever remains. Development order conditions separately fix the minimum visitor and accessible parking a project must provide.
Can a developer sell a utility room in a condominium?
Yes, where the room is identified as an individual parcel in the approved documents rather than as common property. That was the position with the 15.42 sq m utility room in the Kepong case, and the court declined to reclassify it based on how residents understood the space.