What Undivided Co-ownership means
November 12, 2008 by Deyanira Bautista
Filed under Buying Real Estate
In your search for condos, you might have come across the term Co-propriété Indivise, or Undivided Co-ownership. In other provinces are referred to Co-op, but not here in Quebec. In this province, co-op means Housing Cooperatives; used for regulating housing fees and expenses, mostly rental properties. Since we are talking about purchasing real estate here, let’s stick with the two terminologies: Undivided co-ownership or Co-propriété Indivise.
What is Undivided Co-ownership?
According to La chambre de Notaires du Quebec:
A property of this type belongs to several individuals, called undivided co-owners. No one owner owns an exclusive portion of the property; rather, they each own a fraction.
For example, you buy a triplex with two of your friends and you all contribute equally to the sale price. After the sale, you decide to move into the second-floor apartment. The apartment does not belong to you exclusively; your two friends share its ownership with you, just as you share the ownership of their dwellings on the first and third floors. You and your friends are undivided co-owners of the whole triplex. In the example above, your shares in the immovable are one third each.
In a nutshell: When you buy into an undivided co-ownership you are acquiring shares into the ownership of the building, as an undivided co-owner.
Condominiums are divided by cadastral numbers, each unit has their own, sort of like a serial number for properties. When buying into a condominium, you are buying real estate property. While with undivided, the building has only one cadastral number (wheather it has 40 units or 2), and the undivided owners share the title of ownership to the whole building, with the exclusive rights to the units dictated on the indivision agreement.
In terms of property prices, we cannot say that condos are more expensive than undivided co-ownerships. The search results of condos sold in Plateau (2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 800-1000 sq ft) in the last six months gives us a median of $250,500. While with the same criteria, the undivided shows a median price of $244,000.
Undivided units are in buildings of different styles, sizes and in every type of neighborhood. We’ve noticed a great number of these properties popping up in Plateau, Downtown, NDG and Côte-des-Neiges. Also Westmount, Villeray and Rosemont are following up in listing numbers.
In a future article, we’ll write about Financing and shared costs of these types of properties. Stay tuned!
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Posted by: Deya Bautista - Affiliated Real Estate Agent working as part of the McGill Immobilier team. Specializing in condos and revenue property in the metropolitan area of Montreal. For buying or selling contact Deya at: 514.917.7889 
Merci! Je commençais à désespéré à force de ne pas me faire expliquer les choses clairement!
Why can't we rent out a co-ownership?
It isn't that you cannot rent out a undivided co-ownership. The rules and regulations (which are different on each case) are displayed in the legal document that co-owners create. This could mean no pets or not being allowed to sell to outsiders before offering it to existing co-owners, for example. It will all depend on the rules given on the document, which was agreed by the co-owners themselves.
I was informed by the Caise Dejardins that they don’t allow the owners to rent out the undivided co-ownership because it may cause complications in the case of a bank taking repossession of the property, is this in anyway accurate? Thank you for your time.
Hi Ian,
honestly I never heard of that before. Maybe it is true. Best thing to do is to contact Desjardins directly and get the right info.
If you have a duplex indivis, owned by two families, each living in one appartment, would there be a difference in market price for the appt on first floor and the appt on the second floor (all other things being equal between them: storage space, garde). How is determined the value on each unit, if the floor surface is same.
Thank you
In most cases the higher the floor the more value it has. But there are exceptions: if the property on the main floor is in better condition, or if it has a backyard for example, most likely it will be listed at a higher price.
Hello Deya,
If one of the owners in an undivided condo does not pay their mortgage, are the other owners financially responsible for that debt to the bank? Or is each owner's responsibility for mortgages limited to their own? I do understand that taxes and maintenance are a shared responsibility. This question deals with a defaulting owner of another unit, where the bank has taken insurance and the property as co-lateral.
Hi Marc,
According to the notaries, they are not responsible for someone else defaulting on payments. See this article to get the entire information:http://montrealrealestateblog.com/undivided-co-ownership-formalities-involved/
Hi,
I'm writing as a guest to this forum. I am in the process of buying an undivided co-ownership lower duplex in montreal and have received a copy from the seller of the current co-ownership agreement. It has the sellers name on it and the name of the previous owner of the upper half of the duplex. Does a new agreement have to be drawn up by a notary for myself and the owner of the upper or is the current agreement transferable as the cadastre numbers are unchanged? Any help or advice you could offer would really be appreciated. thanks,
Jean, that\\'s a question for your notary. Make sure to ask him that
Greetings,
I have a question. I currently live in a co-property in Montreal. I "own" the second floor and another family "owns" the first (ground) floor with a finished basement. They also have exclusive rights to the back and front yard (including the only parking spot). At present our co-ownership is based on a 45/55 split. I am wondering what if anything I can do to investigate and ideally change this ratio. Based on the property shared, I do not feel like I own 45 percent and am curious to find out how ownership ratios are determined in co-properties.
Also, if anyone has any idea as to what constitutes common expenses and how expenses are shared, I would be most appreciative.
Many thanks!
Taylor,
You'd have to speak to a notary about this. Then you may change the document that dictates the shares and common expenses.