The Bad News about Square Meterage - שטח עיקרי ושטח שירות, שטח ברוטו ונטו

So as a follow up to my previous post on how to determine your square meterage I now have some bad news. Not all square meterage is created equal. There's a difference between main space, otherwise called שטח עיקרי, versus service areas like hallways or stairs a.k.a שטח שירות. Stipulating area only in terms of שטח עיקרי is referred to as שטח נטו whereas area that includes שטחי שירות is called שטח ברוטו.

A little background.

In the old days, building plans were relatively simple when it came to building rights. They might say something like building a 100 SqM house or being able to build 40% of what the plot size is. In either case, the amount stipulated was all-inclusive i.e. the marginal kinds of areas (like stairs or מרפסות or service rooms - שטח שירות) were counted the same as prime area - שטח עיקרי.

You could make a house of 90 SqM of עיקרי and 10 SqM of שטח שירות, or you could make it 50-50. it was up to you with no real distinction listed in the building permit.

Subsequently was passed the by-laws of תקנות התכנון והבניה (חישוב שטחים ואחוזי בנייה בתכניות ובהיתרים) תשנ"ב-1992. Therein the law clearly outlined many of the rules regarding how to calculate area including what to be considered שטח עיקרי and what to be considered שטח שירות.
Further more, in סעיף 9, it required all future תכניות to clearly delineate the building rights for עיקרי and שירות separately. 

As a result, many of the תכניות (and therefore in consequence building permits as well) subsequent to 1992 should breakdown the square meterage by עיקרי ושירות.  What it also means is that if you're looking at a source that predated 1992 (like a building permit or a Tabo that came from an old תיק בית משותף), you're looking at a Square Meterage that it's hard to know what exactly it includes or excludes...


Further complicating things is that there was large scale debate of what parts of the building are or are not considered part of an apartment. Below is a table taken from the Hebrew Wikipedia article on שטח דירה:

You'll notice that the שמאי standard #9 is highlighted in green and is seen as the standard that the country is striving to adopt but as of yet has still not been incorporated into טאבו by some of the רשויות מקומיות.

You'll also not that standard 9 includes קירות חוץ ומשותפים -- outer walls and joint walls. Earlier standards that were practiced in the 60's and 70's strictly included the inner walls only and excluded the thickness of outer or joint walls.

Consequently, you can have registered square meterage of a Tabo from the 60's and 70's that often will be less than the square meterage were the property to be registered nowadays. in these cases it's best to consult the building plans themselves to see what was or was not taken into the calculation.