Wiktionary
n. 1 A piece of land or a room that is designed for the use of multiple visitors to or inhabitants of a place. 2 (context legal English) In a condominium or other cooperative residential facility, an area owned by the organization that oversees the facility, but is not owned by any specific resident.
Wikipedia
A common area is, in real estate or real property law, the "area which is available for use by more than one person..." The common areas are those that are available for common use by all tenants, (or) groups of tenants and their invitees. In Texas and other parts of the United States, it is "An area inside a housing development that is owned by all residents or by an overall management structure which charges each tenant for maintenance and upkeep."
Common areas often exist in apartments, gated communities, condominiums, cooperatives and shopping malls.
In any situation where there is a tenancy in common, all the tenants in common collectively own the common areas, meaning that any one individual owner does not possess more control over the land than any other owner.
This differs from a commons or common land, as used in English law, which is owned by one person, but which may be used by a group of persons.
Usage examples of "common area".
Strange, she thought, how the integers, which are discrete, and our attempts to chart time, which is continuous, may well combine to give us a common area of reference with extraterrestrials.
The common area was covered by cameras, though, which were linked to security although not directly to SAINT.
She suggested they go to the common area with the other women and bake some tava bread in the ovens.
Jaina was about to go and do a double check on the welds of a bank stabilizer her father had installed for the trip when she heard footsteps coming from the common area.
The outer two heavyworlders paced the common area for all the world like caged exotics.
Dondara had been gone for nearly two hours when Flor appeared at the door of the common area.
The fishmistress, who was also their cook, had brought a large basin into the sitting room adjacent to the common area, where she used a flat knife to pry open stoneclams and shuck the meat into a pot of salted broth.
I slept in the common area with those who were too starved or sick to find shelter elsewhere.