CONDO OWNERSHIP
From Listings to Living
A condo deed describes less of a building than most buyers expect. Florida's condominium statute says a unit owner holds "an exclusive easement for the use of the airspace occupied by the unit as it exists at any particular time." The airspace. Not the studs, not the slab, not the roof above it.
That one line explains most of what confuses people two years in: why the association can bill you for a roof you never walk on, why your insurance policy seems to start at the drywall, and why the neighbor's balcony repair is her problem while the elevator is everyone's. So let's define a condo the way the recorded documents do. The popular shorthand, "an apartment you own," is where the trouble usually starts.
Leevli EditorialLast updated 2026-09-17
A condominium is a form of ownership, not a style of building. Florida's Chapter 718 states it about as cleanly as any statute does: a condominium is a form of real property ownership "comprised entirely of units that may be owned by one or more persons, and in which there is, appurtenant to each unit, an undivided share in common elements." A unit is "a part of the condominium property which is subject to exclusive ownership." Common elements are "the portions of the condominium property not included in the units."
Read those three sentences together and the structure falls out. There is a part you own outright. There is a part nobody owns individually. And there is a fractional share of that second part attached permanently to the first. Florida calls the combination a condominium parcel: "a unit, together with the undivided share in the common elements appurtenant to the unit."
Your state's wording will differ. Nine states have adopted a version of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, which governs condominiums, planned communities and real estate cooperatives under one statute; the rest run their own condominium acts. The architecture is nearly always the same.
When you close on a condo, you are acquiring three connected assets, and each one behaves differently.
That third item is the one buyers underweight. A condo purchase is partly a real estate transaction and partly buying into a small, permanent, non-profit corporation whose budget you now help fund.
A building becomes a condominium when a declaration is recorded in the county land records. Until then it is just a building. The declaration draws the unit boundaries, assigns each unit's percentage share, lists what the association maintains, and sets the rules that run with the land.
The bylaws, the rules and regulations, and the board's authority to fine all sit underneath it. If you are trying to work out which document controls which question, the hierarchy is worth learning before you make an offer; we walk through it in detail in our guide to how condo and HOA governing documents stack up.
Most disputes live here. A limited common element is common property reserved for the exclusive use of one unit or a few. Balconies, assigned parking spaces, terraces, the HVAC condenser on the roof, and sometimes windows and entry doors fall into this category.
The association usually controls repair and replacement, but the cost allocation varies wildly. In some projects the association pays from general assessments. In others it charges the benefited owners. In others still, the owner maintains it but cannot change its appearance. Find the limited common element section of your declaration and read it twice. It is the section most likely to produce a five-figure surprise.
The ownership form stays the same across buildings that have almost nothing else in common.
Because the last two exist, you cannot identify a condo by looking at it. You identify it by reading the deed.
A cooperative is the closest relative and the most commonly confused. In a co-op, as the New York Attorney General's office describes it, "a purchaser buys shares in a corporation," and those shares come with "a long-term proprietary lease for the apartment." You own stock and a lease, not real property. Financing is a share loan rather than a mortgage, and the board's power over a resale is typically far broader than a condo board's.
A condo is also not an apartment, even when the floor plan is identical. Title and rulemaking are what separate them, as we break down in condominium vs apartment, compared honestly. And it is not the same as a townhouse, which describes construction rather than ownership; that pairing gets its own treatment in the real difference between a condo and a townhouse. Renters weighing the two attached-housing options will want townhouse vs apartment from a renter's point of view.
Common enough that it is no longer a niche. The Foundation for Community Association Research counted roughly 373,000 community associations nationally in its 2025 Fact Book, housing about 78.1 million residents, which is more than a third of the U.S. housing stock. Condominium associations are a large slice of that total, alongside planned communities and cooperatives.
Lenders track project health closely as a result. Fannie Mae treats a project as established only once control has passed from the developer to the unit owners and at least 90% of units have been conveyed to purchasers. Before that point, financing options narrow.
Three documents tell you most of what a listing photo cannot: the declaration, the current budget with reserve figures, and the association's insurance declarations page. The last one is the one buyers skip and then regret; our guide to what condo association insurance actually covers explains where the master policy stops and your own coverage has to begin.
Also ask for the last two years of meeting minutes, because special assessments and deferred roof work surface there first. And confirm how the unit is taxed: condos are assessed as individual parcels, which surprises owners who assume the fee covers it. That mechanic is covered in how condo property taxes are actually calculated.
A condo gives you a deed, a mortgage, a tax bill and a vote, plus a permanent financial partnership with every other owner in the building. That partnership is the part worth diligence. The unit will be what the photos showed, while the association decides whether the next ten years are quiet or expensive.
Start with the recorded documents rather than the brochure. Leevli's deeds and documents tools are built for exactly that first pass, and when you are ready to compare specific buildings, browse current condo listings with the declaration questions already in hand.
The declaration says who is responsible for what. An owner in the building knows how that reads once a bill arrives.
Listings show the property, but they rarely explain the lived reality around it. On Leevli, a mover can explore the city, review neighborhood and building information, and ask a verified resident the specific questions that remain unanswered. That human layer helps readers know what to investigate before signing a lease, making an offer, or choosing between two addresses.
A condo is a property interest created by a recorded declaration that divides a project into individually owned units plus common property shared by all owners. Florida's statute describes it as a form of ownership comprised entirely of units, with an undivided share in the common elements attached to each one. The building can be a tower, a row house or a freestanding home.
Common elements are the parts of the condominium property not included in any unit. That usually covers the land, the structural framing, the roof, corridors, lobbies, elevators, the pool and the parking deck. The association maintains them and funds that work through assessments. Your share of them cannot be sold, mortgaged or refused separately, because it is permanently attached to your unit.
It is common property set aside for the exclusive use of one unit or a small group of units. Balconies, terraces, assigned parking, rooftop condenser units and sometimes windows and entry doors are typical examples. Who repairs them and who pays varies by declaration. Some associations cover the cost from general assessments, some bill the benefited owners, and some leave maintenance to the owner while controlling appearance.
It means every owner holds a percentage share of the entire common property rather than a specific piece of it. You do not own the north half of the lobby. You own a fraction of all of it, fixed by the declaration, and that fraction also sets your share of the common expenses and often your voting weight. It transfers automatically with the unit at closing.
The declaration is the recorded instrument that creates the condominium and defines unit boundaries, percentage shares, maintenance duties and use restrictions. It sits in the county land records, so a title company or the recorder's office can produce it. Most states also require the seller or association to deliver a resale package with the documents, and the deadline for that delivery is set by state law.
No. In a housing cooperative the buyer acquires shares in a corporation along with a long-term proprietary lease for a specific apartment, as the New York Attorney General's office explains. You hold stock and a lease rather than real property. Financing is a share loan rather than a mortgage, and co-op boards usually hold much broader authority to approve or refuse a buyer.
High-rise projects with elevators and staffed lobbies carry the heaviest common expense load. Low-rise and garden-style projects run two to four stories with surface parking. Conversions started life as rental apartments. Townhouse-style condos look like row houses but have no individual lot. Detached or site condos are freestanding houses under a condominium declaration. The paperwork, not the silhouette, decides which one you are buying.
Sometimes, and only the declaration answers it for your building. Many declarations set the boundary at the unfinished surface of the perimeter walls, floor and ceiling, which leaves the drywall and everything behind it with the association. Others include the drywall in the unit. The answer drives how your own policy has to be written, so read the boundary language before you buy coverage.
Plan on four recurring items: the loan payment, property tax billed on your unit as its own parcel, an individual unit policy, and the monthly assessment. Special assessments sit on top of that whenever reserves fall short of a major repair. The assessment is not a fixed number either, since budgets, insurance premiums and reserve requirements move year to year.
They evaluate the unit and skip the association. The finishes are visible at a showing, while the reserve balance, the delinquency rate, the insurance limits and the pending repair work are all in documents nobody hands you unless you ask. Request the declaration, two years of budgets, the reserve study and the last two years of minutes before the inspection period closes.
Editorial review: verify current federal and state law, insurance regulations, HOA and condominium statutes, and lender guidelines before relying on any single claim. This article is informational and does not constitute legal, financial, tax or insurance advice.
