Garden Apartment
Synonyms: Ground-Floor Garden Flat، Garden Flat، Apartment with Garden
Last updated: 2026-09-25
Short Definition
A garden apartment is a ground-floor residential unit in a multi-unit building with an attached courtyard or outdoor garden reserved for its occupants, combining the cost of a flat with the outdoor space typical of villas.
Overview
Legal Basis
Article 1 of the Law of Ownership, Partition and Management of Real Estate Units issued by Royal Decree No. (M/85) dated 2/7/1441H lists gardens and yards among the common parts; Article 7 makes common parts whose benefit is limited to some owners jointly owned by those owners unless otherwise agreed; and Article 9 prohibits altering facades or using common parts other than for their designated purpose. Paragraph 4 of Article 30 of the VAT Implementing Regulations states that residential real estate includes its legally assigned boundaries, including gardens. Leases are governed by the Civil Transactions Law and documented on Ejar.
Practical Example
A family rents an 80 m² ground-floor garden flat in Al-Safa, Dammam, for SAR 42,000 a year, compared with SAR 34,000 for a similar second-floor flat, a premium of SAR 8,000 (about 23.5%). The lease is documented on Ejar as residential for SAR 125 with no VAT, because the garden is part of the home's boundaries. The contract makes daily watering and upkeep the tenant's responsibility (about SAR 1,800 a year for water and a gardener), makes repairs to the main irrigation network the owner's, and prohibits building a fixed shade without the owner's consent and a municipal permit.
Common Mistakes
- ✗Buying a ground-floor flat at a premium for a garden that is neither registered within the unit's boundaries nor allocated to it in the bylaws.
- ✗Building rooms or fixed shades in the garden without a permit or owners' association approval, affecting facades or neighbours.
- ✗Not specifying responsibility for irrigation, upkeep and water costs in the lease.
- ✗Failing to check drainage of irrigation and rainwater, which causes damp walls or seepage into the basement.
- ✗Assuming a garden always raises returns without counting upkeep costs and privacy needs.
International Differences
In the UK these are known as garden flats, and garden rights are usually set out in the long lease. In Turkey they are known as ‘bahçe katı’ flats, and the right to use the garden may be allocated to them in the building's management plan. In the UAE they are common in low-rise projects. The common thread is that a garden's value depends on documented exclusive-use rights, not just its position in front of the flat.
