Talmud - Bava Batra 61a בבא בתרא ס״א א׳

MISHNA: One who sells a house without specifying what is included in the sale has not sold the gallery, an extension built above or alongside the main building, and this is so even if the gallery is attached to the house and opens into it. Nor has he sold the room behind the house, even if it is accessible only from inside the house. He has also not sold the roof when it has a parapet ten handbreadths high, as such a roof is considered a separate entity and is therefore not included in the sale of the house. Rabbi Yehuda says: If the parapet has the form of a doorway, that is, if it consists of two upright posts with a beam crossing over them, then even if the parapet is not ten handbreadths high, the roof is not sold together with the house, unless it is specifically included in the sale.

GEMARA: What is a gallery? Here in Babylonia they interpreted this as referring to an attic [apta]. Rav Yosef said: It means a windowed structure [bidka ḥalila] attached to the main building. The Gemara notes that according to the one who says that an attic is not sold together with a house, all the more so is a windowed structure attached to the house not sold together with a house, as it is certainly considered a separate entity and not part of the main building. But according to the one who says that a gallery is a windowed structure attached to the house, it is only such a structure that is not included in the sale of the house, but an attic is sold together with a house.

Rav Yosef taught: A small structure attached to a building has three names in the Bible: Gallery [yatzia], side chamber [tzela], and cell [ta]. Such a structure is called a gallery, as it is written: “The bottommost gallery [hayyatzia] was five cubits wide” (I Kings 6:6). It is also called a side chamber, as it is written: “And the side chambers [vehatzelaot] were one over another, thirty-three times” (Ezekiel 41:6). Additionally, it is called a cell, as it is written: “And the cell [vehata] was one reed long, and one reed wide; and the space between the cells was five cubits” (Ezekiel 40:7). And if you wish, say instead that it can be seen that a small structure attached to a building is called a cell from here, as was taught in the mishna (Middot 4:7): The wall of the Sanctuary was six cubits wide, and the cell [vehata] in back of it was six cubits wide, and the wall of the cell was five cubits wide.

§ Relating to the mishna’s statement that a gallery is not included in the sale of a house, Mar Zutra said: And that is the halakha only when the gallery has an area of at least four by four cubits.

Ravina said to Mar Zutra: According to your opinion, that you say a gallery is not excluded from the sale of a house unless it is at least four by four cubits in size, there is a difficulty. As if that is so, then with regard to the exclusion of a pit or a cistern from the sale of a house, about which we learned in a mishna (64a): One who sells a house has sold neither the pit nor the cistern, even if he writes for the buyer in the bill of sale that he is selling him the depth and the height of the house; so too, should we say that only if they have an area of at least four by four cubits, yes, they are excluded from the sale of the house, but if not, no, they are not excluded? This is difficult, as a pit is not four cubits wide, and consequently, it would never be excluded.

Mar Zutra responded: How can these cases be compared? There, in that mishna, this, the excavations, have a discrete use, to store water, and they cannot possibly be used as living quarters, and that, the house, has a discrete use, to serve as living quarters, and so they are considered separate entities even if the excavation is not four cubits wide. But here, in the case of a gallery, both this, the gallery, and that, the house, have the same use, and so if the gallery is at least four by four cubits it is deemed significant and considered a separate entity, but if it is not four by four cubits, it is not deemed significant in its own right, but simply another part of the house.

The mishna teaches that one who sells a house without specifying what is included in the sale has not sold the gallery, nor has he sold the room behind the house, even if it is accessible only from it. The Gemara asks: Now that the mishna taught that a gallery is not sold along with the house, is it necessary to teach that a room behind the house is not included in such a sale?

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

Bava Batra 61a explores what counts as included in a house sale, defining galleries, attics, and rooftop parapets under Jewish law.