The same Kansas ruling handed one parcel back to the developer
The same Kansas ruling handed one parcel back to the developer
2026-09-10 · Kansas · Courts
The Kansas Court of Appeals gave the unit owners the lots and gave the developer the tract — and the difference between them was a distinction Kansas trial courts had been treating as immaterial. The second half of Stonegate Motorplaza Condominium Association, Inc. v. HP Motorplaza, LLC, decided June 18, 2026, reversed summary judgment as to a parcel labelled Tract B.1
For any Kansas condominium whose declaration mentions expansion, this is the more important half.
Two words, two different statutes
The Apartment Ownership Act, the court noted, “does not specifically use the term expandible land, but it does describe what is called an ‘[e]xpandable condominium’” — defined at K.S.A. 58-3102(l) as a “condominium to which additional real property may be added in accordance with the provisions of the declaration” and the Act.2
The critical difference: “Unlike convertible land, expandible condominium is not, by definition, included in the submitted land.” Expansion is deemed to occur only when the plat and floor plans are recorded together with an amendment to the declaration containing a legal description of the land added, under K.S.A. 58-3115b.
Reading the declaration, clause by clause
The court went to the document. Section 1.18 defined the “Garage Condominium Project” as the submitted land. Section 1.36 described the submitted land as the land in Exhibit A. Section 2.2 submitted “the Garage Condominium Project to the provisions of the Act.” And Tract B was not in Exhibit A — it appeared in Exhibit A-2, defined separately as the expandable land.
Why describe it at all, then? Because K.S.A. 58-3111 requires a declaration to contain both a “[d]escription of the land submitted to the provisions of this act” and, if the condominium is expandable, “[a] legal description of all land that may be added to the condominium.” And K.S.A. 58-3115(c) requires plats showing “the submitted land, any convertible lands within the submitted land and any additional land if the condominium is an expandable condominium” — language that, the court said, “separates the concept of ‘additional land’ from ‘submitted land.’”
The developer had complied with all of that. It never amended Exhibits A and A-2 to move any of Tract B into the submitted land.
Where the district court went wrong
The trial judge had reasoned by analogy. K.S.A. 58-3111(13)(c) provides that a developer's expansion option “shall expire” if not exercised within seven years; the court read “shall” as mandatory, held the rights expired, and concluded that both the convertible and expandable land became common area — comparing it, in the Court of Appeals' summary, to “a party being [disseized] automatically through a statute of limitations in adverse possession cases.”
The appellate court accepted the premise and rejected the conclusion: “what the district court missed was the fact that there is no similar provision to K.S.A. 58-3115a (‘[a]ll convertible lands shall be deemed a part of the common area and facilities until converted’) related to expandable land. Because expandable land here was not submitted land or convertible land it was not deemed part of the common area to be held by all unit owners as tenants in common. It was never common area to begin with, it did not become common area when Developer failed to develop it.”
And the disposition: “Based on the clear language of the Declaration, Tract B could not ‘remain’ under common ownership if it never took on that status in the first place.”
So the expansion right did expire. Expiry of a right to add land is simply not the same event as land changing hands. The developer keeps the tract in fee simple, now without any ability to fold it into the condominium.
What this leaves a Kansas association holding
Potentially the worst of both outcomes, and the reason a lapsed development right is not always cause for celebration. A parcel of expandable land whose expansion window has closed is privately owned ground, adjoining or inside the community, that can never become part of the condominium. Its owner may sell it, develop it for a use the declaration does not govern, or leave it as it is. The association has no assessment power over it and no architectural authority under a declaration to which the land was never submitted.
Three practical steps follow.
Read Exhibit A against Exhibit A-2. Whatever your declaration's exhibit lettering, the question is the same: which legal descriptions were submitted, and which were merely disclosed as land that might be added? That is a title question with a documentary answer, and it decides ownership of everything undeveloped in the community.
Check for recorded amendments. Expansion is effective only on recording an amended declaration with plat and floor plans. If a developer built on expandable land but never recorded the amendment, this opinion says the buildings may not be part of the condominium at all — a much more disruptive problem than a vacant tract.
Look at your own community's amenity promises. The court opened by observing that the case “is an example of what happens when glossy marketing promises collide with the reality of Kansas property law.” A promised clubhouse or pool sited on expandable land was never secured by the declaration, and no lapse of time will convert it.
What to watch next
Watch how Kansas declarations get drafted from here. The Community Associations Institute appeared as amicus in this case, and the drafting fix is straightforward — put land you intend to become common area into the submitted land and label it convertible, or take an express option with a recorded reversion. Expect newer Kansas condominium declarations to say so explicitly.
Watch, too, for the first case applying this to a Kansas residential condominium. Stonegate involved garage condominiums, but the statutory analysis is not use-specific and the same exhibits appear in residential declarations across the state.
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