Rooftop

A rooftop is the open top part of a building above the highest floor, used for water tanks, air-conditioning units and antennas. Depending on what the building permit and municipal requirements allow, it may be used as a shared facility, a rooftop annex, a garden, a restaurant, or a site for telecom masts or solar panels. In Saudi Arabia, using a roof raises two questions: ownership and permits. As to ownership, if a building has a single owner, the roof belongs to that owner and is not part of any flat's lease unless the contract says so. In a separately titled jointly owned building, the roof is usually a common part, since the Law of Ownership, Partition and Management of Real Estate Units defines common parts as those intended for common use or whose nature requires joint ownership, unless the roof is allocated to a particular unit in the partition or the bylaws. No owner may use common parts other than for their designated purpose or harm the structure. As to permits, any construction or activity on the roof is subject to the building permit, municipal requirements, safety requirements and structural load limits. In practice, a roof can generate extra income, for example by leasing part of it to telecom companies for masts or to a restaurant operator in commercial buildings. In a jointly owned property, returns from investing common parts are among the owners' association's resources and reduce owners' contributions. The contract should set out loads, service connections and responsibility for waterproofing and for leaks into the floors below, which are the most common rooftop problems.