Freehold, condo or POTL: three Ontario townhouses that look alike from the street but differ on ownership, fees, repairs, insurance and the status certificate.
Written by Hamidreza Etebarian on
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Of the 811 Toronto townhouses for sale on Zealty, 629 list a monthly maintenance fee and 182 do not (Zealty active listings, pulled October 21, 2026). That fee is the fastest way to tell what you would actually own. A freehold townhouse is a house and the land under it, with no condo corporation and no monthly fee. A standard condo townhouse is a unit in a condominium corporation, and the fee pays for the shared structure and grounds. A POTL, short for parcel of tied land, sits between the two: you own the house and the lot outright, and a common elements condominium corporation charges a smaller fee for the private road, visitor parking or landscaping you share with your neighbours. This guide compares all three on ownership, the monthly fee, insurance and repairs, the reserve fund, and the status certificate.
With a freehold townhouse in Ontario, the house and its lot are your parcel on title. There is no corporation, no board and no monthly fee. You share one or two walls with the neighbours, and some freehold rows also carry registered easements for things like a shared driveway or access for repairs. Your lawyer reads those off title before closing.
A condo townhouse looks the same from the street but is owned differently. Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 lists standard condominium corporations as one of four types of freehold condominium corporation, alongside common elements, phased and vacant land corporations (section 6, current e-Laws consolidation checked October 21, 2026). You own a unit as the declaration and description define it, plus a share of the common elements. Where the unit ends depends on the corporation. In many Ontario townhouse condos the roof, the exterior walls and even the backyard are common elements, sometimes set aside for your exclusive use, so the declaration is worth reading before you fall for the patio.
A POTL townhouse combines the two. Under Part X of Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 (sections 138 to 144, checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026), a common elements condominium corporation creates common elements but does not divide the land into units. Each owner must also own the freehold of a separate parcel of land outside the condominium, and the owner's common interest attaches to that parcel. Section 139 (4) says the common interest is not severed from the parcel when the parcel is sold or when a lender enforces a mortgage on it, so the fee obligation stays with the house through every future owner. In practice, the house and lot are freehold, and the shared road or parkette belongs to the condominium corporation that every owner on the street is tied to. Listings describe the charge as a POTL fee or a common element fee.
A freehold owner pays no fee and pays for everything directly: the roof, windows, snow on the driveway, the property tax bill and any repair to the house.
Section 84 (1) of Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 requires owners to contribute to the common expenses in the proportions set out in the declaration, and that contribution is the monthly fee (checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). For a standard condo townhouse that usually covers upkeep of the common elements, the corporation's insurance, management, the reserve fund contribution and, in some corporations, water or other utilities. What it includes varies by corporation, so read the budget line by line. Our guide to Toronto condo fees breaks down where that money goes.
A POTL fee covers only what the common elements condominium owns, which is usually a private road and whatever sits along it, such as visitor parking, lighting, snow clearing on the road, mailboxes or landscaped strips. Because the corporation owns so little, the fee tends to be much lower than a standard condo fee. The roof over your head is not in it.
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Among the 629 Toronto townhouse listings that show a fee, the median is $564 a month (Zealty active listings, pulled October 21, 2026). Of the townhouses with a fee, 67 list one under $300 a month, not counting 8 parking spaces and lockers listed in the same category. Some of those low-fee listings may be POTLs, but the listing data does not say which ones, so check the description and the declaration before you assume.
Unpaid fees follow the property on both types. Under Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998, a corporation has a lien for unpaid common expenses against a condo owner's unit (section 85 (1)) and against a POTL owner's parcel of land (section 139 (5)), both checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026.
In a standard condo townhouse, Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 requires the corporation to insure the units and common elements against major perils such as fire, windstorm, hail and water escape (section 99), to maintain the common elements while each owner maintains their own unit (section 90 (1)), and to repair the units and common elements after damage (section 89 (1)), unless the declaration shifts some of those duties under section 91 (checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). The insurance duty does not extend to improvements made to a unit (section 99 (4)). Owners still carry their own policy for contents, liability and anything the corporation's insurance excludes, such as upgrades to the unit.
For a common elements condominium, section 144 of the same Act switches off the unit repair and maintenance rules in sections 89 and 90, requires the corporation to maintain and repair the common elements, and says references to a unit in the insurance sections (99 to 105) do not apply (checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). That means you insure and repair your POTL house the way any freehold owner would, and the corporation looks after the road.
A freehold owner carries the whole house: insurance, the roof, the foundation and the shared wall repairs you work out with the neighbour.
Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 requires every condominium corporation to keep at least one reserve fund, used only for major repair and replacement of the common elements and assets, and paid for out of owners' contributions to the common expenses (section 93, checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). Until a corporation completes its first reserve fund study, contributions must be at least 10 per cent of the budgeted common expenses excluding the reserve fund, unless the regulations say otherwise (section 93 (5)), and section 94 requires periodic studies after that. Section 138 (4) applies these rules to common elements corporations as well.
A POTL corporation runs a reserve fund too, but it only has to pay for the road and the other common elements, not roofs and siding. A standard condo townhouse fund has to cover the big structural items, which is why its health matters so much more to a buyer. A freehold owner has no reserve fund at all, so you save for the next roof on your own.
For a standard condo townhouse, section 76 of Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998 requires the corporation to give a status certificate within 10 days of receiving the request and the fee, and section 18 (4) of Ontario Regulation 48/01 caps that fee at $100 including all applicable taxes (both checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). The pages that decide most purchases are the reserve fund statement, any special assessment and the budget. Our guide to the status certificate in Ontario walks through each page and the red flags.
Section 138 (4) of the Act applies the status certificate rules to common elements corporations too, reading each reference to a unit as a reference to the owner's common interest, and section 139 (2) required a notice of the tie to be registered against each owner's parcel, so it shows up on title (checked on e-Laws October 21, 2026). Ask for it on a POTL just as you would on a condo. It is usually shorter, but it tells you the fee, whether the seller is behind, and whether the corporation has money set aside for the road.
A freehold townhouse has no status certificate. Your lawyer does the work through a title search and the usual checks on property tax arrears and work orders, which is part of the closing costs in Ontario you budget for anyway.
The 182 Toronto townhouses listed without a monthly fee have a median asking price of $1,188,950. The 629 listed with a fee have a median asking price of $699,900. Across all 811, the median asking price is $769,900 (Zealty active listings, pulled October 21, 2026). Zealty does not have Ontario sold prices, so these are asking prices, not sale prices.
Treat the no-fee group as a rough stand-in for freehold, not proof. A listing can leave the fee field blank by mistake, a POTL fee may or may not be entered, and the price gap also reflects size and location, which this split does not control for. Still, 431 of the 629 fee listings ask under $800,000, against 33 of the 182 no-fee listings (same pull). Below $800,000 in Toronto, most townhouses come with a fee.
You can sort the current list yourself on the Toronto listings page, where every townhouse shows its asking price and, when the listing includes one, its monthly fee.
Whether you are looking at a freehold townhouse, a condo townhouse or a POTL, the listing fee is only a starting point. The declaration, the budget and the status certificate tell you what that fee buys.
This guide is educational and is not legal or financial advice. Ask a real estate lawyer to review the declaration, the title and the status certificate before you firm up an offer.
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