Common area

[2][3] In Texas and other parts of the United States, it is "An area inside a housing development owned by all residents or by an overall management structure which charges each tenant for maintenance and upkeep.

"[4][5] Common areas often exist in apartments, gated communities, condominiums, cooperatives, and shopping malls.

As the Court's assumption-of-risk analysis makes clear, third-party consent limits a person's ability to challenge the reasonableness of the search only because that person voluntarily has relinquished some of his expectation of privacy by sharing access or control over his property with another person.In residence halls of colleges and universities, the common areas are those spaces in a dorm that are for the use of all the student residents.

In order to paint murals, improve with fixtures, or otherwise change the common area, permission may have to be obtained from the director of residential life.

State-run universities do have the authority to prohibit use of common areas should they see fit (whether that be decorating, furnishings, or physical use).

[18] Depending upon the common area type (i.e. business, residential, state-owned) there are certain precautions one must take with utilizing them.

For example, businesses may share common areas in a store that accepts vendors from multiple backgrounds.

[19] That portion of the space is considered "lost" because it cannot be directly leased and the maintenance and operation costs must be covered by the other rentable areas.

[21] The loss factor is calculated as follows: The Building Owners and Managers Association has established a standard with American National Standards Institute, ANSI/BOMA Z65.1-2010 for measuring floor area and calculating gross leasable area and loss factor.