Condominium
Definition of "Condominium"
So, you’re out and about your homebuying dream and then you stumble upon this question: what is a condominium? Like, you think you know what is a condo home, but it's so hard to explain...
It's ok; it happens to the best of us.
It's not easy defining what is a condominium; condos are one weird body. Keeping up with its weirdness, we could say that condominium is a form of home ownership in which the owner exclusively owns the airspace within the walls but doesn’t own the actual walls, ceilings or floors of the home and anything beyond those.
But enough with the weird. Let’s make this easy and fun. What is a condo home? Let’s put it in a way that anyone can understand. The best way to describe what is a condominium is by defining it as a place within a place. And, while the interest is different from one to the other, you have ownership over both.
Example: an apartment within a condominium building, or a single-family house within a gated community. You accrue ownership of both, but the smaller unit – the apartment or the house - is 100% yours, while the rest – the common areas like gym, pool, lobby, laundry room, elevators…- are collectively owned by all other residents within the condominium and managed by associations such as a Homeowners Association.
Because the ownership is influenced by the neighbors – as you and they share common areas and, sometimes, services – it will vary from condo home to condo home if you can rent your condo to someone else, or if it’s a “owner’s only” type of property.
So, as you can see, it's hard to define what is a condo home. In the end, a condominium is not so much a place, but a form of ownership.
Popular Real Estate Terms
Rentals received in cash rather than on credit. ...
Kind of siding for wood frame houses where the joints in the usually vertical siding are covered by narrow strips of wood called battens. The battens are nailed over the joints. ...
The Debt-to-Income Ratio’s (DTI) definition is a measure that allows one to compare the ability an individual has to afford a monthly debt payment out of their monthly gross income. ...
Husband's common law rights to the property his deceased wife owned either during the marriage or at the time of her death. The husband has life estate rights in the deceased wife's ...
Same as term government rectangular survey: Way in which the U.S. government uses to subdivide public land. Land is designated as either a base line (East-West) or principal meridian line ...
The amount of inherent risk for a mortgage in granting a mortgage. An operating principle in mortgage risk rating is that the mortgage cannot exceed 2.5 times the mortgagor's annual income, ...
Writ issued by a superior court to a lower court requiring the latter to produce a record of the proceedings of a particular case. The purpose of a writ of certiorari is to review the ...
Legal obligation to pay for a benefit received as if a contract has actually occurred. This may arise in a few cases so that an equitable situation occurs. An example is when a homeowner ...
Street terminating at one end with only one outlet. A dead end street is not a through street. See also cul de sac. ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.