Shared Parking in a Retail Plaza: How a Reciprocal Easement Agreement Protects You — and Ties Your Hands
The parking lot outside your unit in a strip plaza probably isn’t everyone’s. What decides whether you keep using it — and whether a neighbour can pave it over — is a reciprocal easement agreement registered on title. The rights it hands you and the duties it saddles you with are usually on the same page.
Who actually owns the parking lot outside my unit in a retail plaza — and can I count on using it, or can a neighbour redevelop it out from under me?
In most plazas that lot isn’t owned in common. It is split among the owners of several separate parcels, who license each other to use it through a Reciprocal Easement Agreement (REA, also called a cross-easement) registered on title.
An easement is an interest in the land — once registered it runs with the parcel, binds every future buyer, and the benefitting owner can enforce it against the burdened one (per York Region Condominium Corporation No. 890 v. Market Village Markham Inc., 2020 ONSC 3993). That cuts both ways: it lets you hold a neighbour to your parking and access, and it lets a neighbour stop you from unilaterally redeveloping your own land. Watch Ontario’s Planning Act too — an easement running 21 years or longer engages subdivision control, and a grant that skips the required consent may convey no interest in land at all.
Sources: York Region Condominium Corporation No. 890 v. Market Village Markham Inc., 2020 ONSC 3993; Ontario Planning Act s. 50 (ontario.ca, accessed July 2026)
I’m Arthur Zhao. When a client buys a unit in a commercial plaza, the document most likely to get skimmed is the one that quietly governs the parking and the drive aisles — the reciprocal easement agreement. Most buyers meet it for the first time at closing, long after it has already decided what every owner in that plaza may and may not do.
Start by dropping one assumption: the parking field in front of the units is usually not owned in common. Think of it less as a shared backyard and more as a rulebook stapled to each title — every parcel’s owner lends part of its land to the other owners’ customers, in exchange for its own customers being able to use theirs. Once that bargain is registered, it becomes a rule that travels with the dirt and that no single owner can rewrite alone.
This piece isn’t about anxiety. It’s about the two faces of that agreement: the way it backs you up when you are the one benefitting, and the way it pins you down when you are the one burdened — and why, before you buy, you need to see both faces clearly.
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ℹ️Where this fits: this is a plain-language look at the legal structure behind shared parking and access in an Ontario commercial plaza, so you know what to ask and what to check before you buy. It is general information, not legal advice on your specific deal — before you commit, have a commercial real estate lawyer review the actual easement agreement in front of you.
The plaza lot is not a commons — it is a web of private grants
A plaza is often stitched together from several separate parcels, each with its own title — sometimes different owners, sometimes different lots held by the same developer. What lets customers roam and park across the whole site is not common ownership; it is a reciprocal easement agreement (REA) among the owners: I let your customers use the aisles and stalls on my parcel, you let mine use yours — spelled out and mutual.
Why this matters to a buyer: you are purchasing one of those parcels, together with its rights and duties under the agreement — not a share of the whole lot. Knowing which pavement is your land and which pavement you merely have an easement to use is the foundation for everything below.
An easement is an interest in land, not a friendly understanding
1. It runs with the land, not with the person. Once the original owners register the REA, it binds every subsequent buyer — you inherit the rights and the burdens the previous owner created, whether or not you were at the table. The court in 2020 ONSC 3993 put it plainly: an easement is a right in the land, “much like a form of land ownership,” binding on later owners.
2. It has two ends. The parcel that enjoys the right is the dominant tenement; the parcel that carries the burden is the servient tenement. In a plaza REA one owner is usually both at once — your customers park next door (you benefit) and the neighbour’s customers park on your land (you are burdened). You can’t weigh the deal until you can see both directions.
How it protects you: as the benefitting owner, you can block a neighbour’s redevelopment
Ontario has a textbook example. Pacific Mall and Market Village, two adjoining shopping centres, signed a reciprocal easement in 1994 to share parking and customer access. Years later Market Village wanted to move its surface parking underground — a net loss of about 948 stalls, roughly 70% of the spaces. Pacific Mall, the benefitting owner, objected and went to court.
The Ontario Superior Court sided with Pacific Mall: shifting stalls underground changed the very nature of the parking and amounted to eliminating it — a substantial interference with Pacific Mall’s easement; the added demand also pushed beyond what the 1994 agreement intended (overburdening) (York Region Condominium Corporation No. 890 v. Market Village Markham Inc., 2020 ONSC 3993).
The takeaway for a buyer is direct: if your parking and access rights are clearly written and registered, a neighbour who tries to dilute them under the banner of “development” is up against real leverage on your side.
⚠️Leverage isn’t the same as a guaranteed win. Market Village turned entirely on how the words were read — the servient owner argued a relocation clause let it move stalls underground, and it lost only because the court read that clause against the ordinary meaning of surface parking. How strong your protection is depends on how specific the REA is: stall counts, locations, whether parking must stay at grade, whether structures are allowed. Have your lawyer read it clause by clause — don’t relax just because the word easement appears on title.
💡 Hold on to one principle: an easement protects the substance of the use, not a frozen snapshot of the pavement. A neighbour may make reasonable changes to its own land — but the moment a change substantially interferes with the use you were granted (say, deleting 70% of the stalls), the court leans toward the benefitting owner. Merely heavier use, on its own, usually isn’t enough; what matters is whether the change exceeds what the original bargain intended.
How it ties your hands: as the burdened owner, your land isn’t yours to reshape
When you are the servient owner — the one whose land other people’s customers may park on and cross — your control over your own parcel is partly frozen:
· No unilateral redevelopment. Thinking of building out that under-used corner of the lot, adding a drive-thru, or closing an aisle? If it touches the parking or access others were granted, you risk re-running Market Village’s loss.
· Shared maintenance costs (CAM). An REA typically sets who maintains the shared lot, aisles, drainage and lighting, and in what proportions each owner pays. That is a continuing, unavoidable obligation that rides with the title into your name.
· Changes need everyone’s sign-off. A registered REA isn’t yours alone to amend; altering it usually requires the consent of all affected owners, and sometimes clearance under the Planning Act (below).
In short: you aren’t buying a parcel you can do as you please with — you’re buying one that has already made promises to its neighbours.
An REA is not a condominium common element
The mistake buyers make most often is treating a plaza’s shared lot like the common elements of a condo building. The legal skeletons are completely different:
■ Condominium common elements
· Co-owned by all unit owners in proportion, under Ontario’s Condominium Act, 1998
· Run by a statutory condo corporation: a board, a declaration and by-laws, a mandatory reserve fund
· Fees, maintenance and disputes move through a codified statutory system; before buying you can pull a status certificate
■ REA / cross-easement
· Each parcel has its own separate title — nothing is co-owned, and there is no corporation
· Rights and duties come entirely from the registered agreement plus the common law of easements
· Cost-sharing is by contract, and disputes go to court — there is no ready-made governance or disclosure regime like a condo’s
The crux: a condo purchase comes with a status certificate to give you a physical. A plaza unit comes with no such physical — your due diligence is your lawyer reading the REA end to end.
ℹ️A practical note: because a plaza unit has no status certificate, it is dangerously easy to miss the burdens buried in an REA while everything on the surface looks fine. Write review and approval of the REA into your offer as a condition — don’t let the first real read of that agreement happen after your conditions are waived.
Don’t overlook the Planning Act: 21 years, consent, and easements that never existed
There is a layer of Ontario risk outsiders routinely miss, sitting inside subdivision control in section 50 of the Planning Act.
The core rule: when an owner who keeps abutting land grants an easement running 21 years or longer (including in perpetuity), that grant can fall under subdivision control and require a consent — or fit a statutory exemption first (per Ontario Planning Act s. 50).
How serious is a misstep? Under Planning Act s. 50(21), a dealing that violates the section creates or conveys no interest in land. An easement whose paperwork wasn’t done right may be void from the start — the parking right you thought you bought might not exist on paper at all.
You don’t need to recite the statute. You need to treat the REA’s registration compliance itself as something to verify. Easements that owners once just drew up and registered don’t always survive scrutiny.
🚨This is the most expensive blind spot in the whole diligence file. An easement that looks solid on paper and really is registered can still be void from inception if, when it was granted, it crossed a Planning Act line and skipped the required consent — and you may not discover it until you try to rely on it or resell. Don’t judge this yourself; have a commercial real estate lawyer verify the grant-and-registration chain of the REA (per Ontario Planning Act s. 50(21)).
Before you buy a plaza unit, have your lawyer check these seven things
Put all of the above onto one list — the same points I actually watch when I walk a client through plaza diligence:
1. Pull the full registered REA and confirm it is registered and binds the parcel you are buying.
2. Separate your own land from the land you merely use by easement.
3. Check how specific your parking and access rights are: count, location, whether they can be built over.
4. Map the burdens you take on as a servient owner: what others may do on your land, what you may not.
5. CAM: maintenance duties, cost shares, whether there is any cap.
6. Amendment and exit: can the REA be changed, whose consent is needed, is there a term.
7. Planning Act compliance: was a consent required when the easement was granted, and was it obtained.
Miss any one of these and the unit you buy may not be the unit you think you are buying.
Frequently Asked Questions
I bought a unit in a plaza — do I own the parking spaces out front?
Usually not. A plaza is often several separate parcels, and the parking is split among their owners, who license each other through a reciprocal easement agreement (REA). You own one parcel plus its parking and access rights under the REA — not a share of the whole lot. Before closing, have your lawyer separate what is your land from what you only have an easement to use.
What’s the difference between an REA and a condo’s common elements?
The skeletons differ. Condo common elements are co-owned by all unit owners under Ontario’s Condominium Act, 1998, run by a statutory corporation with a board and a reserve fund, and you can pull a status certificate before buying. Under an REA each parcel has its own title, nothing is co-owned, there is no corporation, rights and duties come from the registered agreement plus easement law, costs are shared by contract, and disputes go to court. The practical gap: a condo purchase comes with a status certificate; a plaza unit doesn’t — your lawyer reading the REA is the substitute.
Can a neighbour redevelop the shared lot and take the parking away?
It depends on the REA’s wording and how large the change is. In York Region Condominium Corporation No. 890 v. Market Village Markham Inc. (2020 ONSC 3993), a servient owner tried to move surface parking underground — a net loss of about 70% of the stalls — and the court found it substantially interfered with the benefitting owner’s easement and blocked it. The principle: a neighbour may make reasonable changes to its own land, but not ones that substantially harm the parking and access you were granted. The more specific your rights, the more redevelopment they resist.
Can a registered REA be changed later?
Yes, but the bar is high. An REA is a right registered on title that binds every future owner, so amending it usually needs the consent of all affected owners; and if it touches an easement of 21 years or more, it may also need clearance under Ontario’s Planning Act. Don’t assume you can rework the shared parking or access on your own — ask, before you buy, whether the agreement can be changed and whose sign-off that takes.
What should my lawyer check before I buy a plaza unit?
At least seven things: (1) pull the full registered REA and confirm it binds your parcel; (2) separate your own land from land used by easement; (3) test how specific your parking and access rights are; (4) map the burdens you carry as a servient owner; (5) how CAM costs are shared and whether they’re capped; (6) whether the REA can be amended and whose consent is needed; (7) Planning Act compliance of the original grant — under s. 50(21), a defective easement may convey no interest in land at all. Miss any one and the unit you buy may not be the unit you think it is.
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