What is CONDOMINIUM?

Directly translated from its Latin roots, condominium means "dominion with others" or "shared domain". Before this century, primary reference was to joint sovereignty over a territory by two or more nations.

In most of the world today, no context of "condominium" other than the one we are concerned with remains in popular use. Yet, it has come to acquire three related, yet confusing, variations. 

Firstly, and most accurately, "condominium" denotes the statute-governed form of divided co-ownership of a multi-unit master lot of land. It refers to the whole system comprising title concepts, legislative directives, and operating procedures. As such, the whole property — common property and private units — is described as being held "in condominium" 

Secondly, the word is used to refer to the project as a whole — the land, structures, registered plan, and owner corporation. In this sense, the property is given a community identity, e.g., "The Avalon Condominium".

Thirdly, the conversational "my condominium" denotes an owner's unit together with its share in the common property. 

In Canada and the U.S., because of our national constitutions, provinces and states have jurisdiction over property matters. Consequently, each has its own condominium act.

Other countries may utilize a single nation-wide statute to govern condominium ownership.

In Canada, twelve separate statutes govern condominium ownership. Although many similar and often identical aspects exist, variations abound.

No aspect of this diversity is more confusing than the terminology. For example, a "condominium unit" in Ontario would be a "strata lot" in B. C., or an "exclusive portion" in Quebec.

Co-ownership of the common property (alternately labeled common elements, or common areas) might be referred to as "tenancy in common" or "undivided interests".

Despite vocabulary variances, all condominium regimes share a common logic and similar documentation procedures.

By subdividing a condominium project's air-space into clearly defined parts, sole or multiple ownership of each part can be allocated to the unit owners. And, the titles they receive are independent of each other for mortgage financing and municipal taxation. 

Of the technical definitions encountered over the years, none is as precise and pithy as the following.

In Condominium Law in British Columbia --- a comprehensive, critical analysis directed to the needs of legal practitioners and industry professionals ---  Professor Dennis Pavlich defines "condominium" as:

a unique property-law regime...formally legislating a title which, broadly speaking, consists of an estate, either in fee simple (the usual case), or for life, or pur autre vie, or for years, in respect of  a described part of a building, or designated air space, or bare land, coupled inextricably with an undivided interest as a tenant in common in respect of the remaining ("common") areas (either in the form of land,  air space, facilities or buildings).

Note:
The publication up-dated Prof. Pavlich's landmark work The Strata Tiles Act - Condominium Law in British Columbia. In 1979, the statute's name was changed from the Strata Titles Act to the Condominium Act,  thus paralleling the title-system's label with most of its counterparts.
Last year, in response partly to a penchant within the industry  to posture townhouse (townhome) developments organized under the Act as being somehow different from apartments (which are colloquially called condominiums) the statute's name, upon its revision, was changed back to the Strata Property Act.

Regardless of labeling differences, concepts remain unchanged. And, we look forward to an invaluable up-date edition from the author.

In more generic, everyday language, let's expand upon this seminal definition.

Condominium is:

*  a Land Title system,

* articulated and regulated by Statute
   (return , click on the provincial maps, and follow the links to view the respective
     legislation on-line),

* to a tract of Land and Air Space (and the buildings it may contain),

* whereby Domain over clearly defined parts of the Whole Property 

* is Divided upon Registration of the Respective Constitutional
   Documents  (condominium/strata plan, declaration, description, etc.)

* into Two Traditional Forms,

* Exclusive (private ownership) and

* Undivided (tenancy-in-common shared ownership),

* and Allocated to the Ownership Community via

* Condominium/Strata Titles, all of which comprise

* Two Distinct, Inseparable Parts;

* the first, Exclusive Ownership of an Air-Space Portion of the property
   (the Unit, Strata Lot, or Partie Privative), and

* the second, an Undivided Co-ownership Share in the Common
   Property  (everything that is not a unit),

* the Proportionate Value of which is usually based on the value of the unit
   with respect to the whole property, and

* to which the Rights and Obligations of Unit Owners are 

* defined in the respective Governing Statutes, the Constitutional
  Documents, and individual project By-Laws,

* to which Each Unit Owner is deemed a Contracting Subscriber, and

* which are Enforced by Democratic Administration.

While there's a colloquial preference in British Columbia to refer to apartments only as condominiums, there exists no erroneous condominium versus freehold distinction, as is becoming prevalent in Ontario. Due to BC's pioneering role in supporting leasehold as well as freehold condominium, the distinction between the two tenure forms is well established. The previous (1980) Condominium Act of Ontario specifically excluded leasehold applications. So, the statute clearly identified all owners as holding a "freehold estate...in the unit and common interest".

However, with the authorization of leasehold condominium under the recent Ontario Condominium Act update, the drafting complexity has assisted an industry posture that freehold applies only to that which is not, or may be a special form (vacant/bare-land) of, condominium. In reality, all condominium titles are either freehold or leasehold investments. As Prof Pavlich points out, the exclusive-unit and common-property aspects of condominium apply regardless of whether the plan is a "freehold" (fee simple or life estate) or a leasehold application.

Neither life-estate freehold or leasehold condominium is the same, however, as life-lease arrangements becoming popular in Alberta and Manitoba.