Freehold, POTL or full condominium
The three forms feel similar on a showing and behave very differently on paper. A full condominium townhouse means a corporation owns the exterior, the roof and the grounds and collects a monthly fee for it, so you review a status certificate as you would for an apartment. A freehold townhouse is yours to the lot line with no fee, and the roof is your problem when it leaks. A POTL, short for parcel of tied land, sits between them: you own the house and lot, but a small monthly charge maintains the private road, visitor parking and occasionally a shared water main, and the listing should show it. Many of the newer rows in Duffin Heights and Seaton are POTL, and some of the Liverpool complexes from the 1980s were converted from condominium to freehold decades ago, so the era does not tell you the answer. Ask for the survey, the fee amount and the corporation's budget where one exists.