At some point during almost every property search in Notting Hill or Mayfair, the same conversation happens. The buyer is standing in a flat they like, and they are weighing up two very different versions of outdoor space. One has a roof terrace. One has access to a communal garden. Both are genuinely wonderful. They are just wonderful in entirely different ways.

The roof terrace is the one that stops people at viewings. It is yours alone – nobody else has a key, nobody else’s furniture is on it, nobody else has an opinion about what you plant. In August, when London briefly becomes the city it always promised to be, a roof terrace is hard to beat. The light, the view, the feeling of being above everything while still being in the middle of it. There is nothing quite like it.

The communal garden takes longer to fall in love with. It sounds less exciting at first — shared, maintained by a committee, with rules about noise and ball games that feel slightly Victorian. But the buyers who have lived with access to one of Notting Hill’s great garden squares – Ladbroke, Stanley, Pembridge – tend to be the ones who stop looking for anything else. The garden is always green, always maintained and almost always significantly larger than anything available on a roof at the same price. In a neighbourhood like Notting Hill, access to a genuinely private communal garden is not a compromise. It is one of the most sought after things a property can offer.

The roof terrace is a summer romance. The communal garden is a long marriage.

There is also the social dimension, which is part of the appeal on both sides. A roof terrace is completely private. A communal garden comes with neighbours — the same neighbours whose children you watch grow up from a bench on a Tuesday afternoon. For some buyers that is exactly what they are looking for. For others, the roof terrace wins on that basis alone.

We sell both, and we see how buyers respond to each. The roof terrace gets the excitement at the viewing. The communal garden gets the loyalty two years later.

Neither is the wrong answer. They are just different versions of what outdoor space means to you – and in London, that turns out to be quite a personal question.

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