Strata or freehold: what you own when you buy a multiplex home

The four kinds of title you will see on a multiplex listing

Start with the word freehold, because it appears on most listings and confuses most buyers. Freehold means you own the land, or your strata lot, with no end date. The land title office describes a title as listing the registered fee simple holders, which is the legal name for freehold owners, together with the legal description, the parcel identifier and every charge registered against the property. The second word on the listing tells you whether there is a strata.

Freehold Strata is the common case for a new duplex, triplex or fourplex. The building and land are divided by a strata plan into strata lots, one for each home, and common property, which is everything that is not inside a lot. You own your strata lot, and section 66 of the Strata Property Act gives you a share of the common property as a tenant in common, in proportion to your lot's unit entitlement. A strata corporation, which is all the owners acting together, insures the building and repairs the outside.

Bare Land Strata is a strata where each lot is a piece of land. The strata plan marks each lot with survey posts and usually does not show the homes at all. The owner of each lot insures and repairs the home on it, and the strata corporation looks after the shared land, such as a driveway or a garden.

Freehold NonStrata on a multiplex usually means one property with one title, owned by two or more people who each hold a share. There is no strata corporation and no strata plan. The rules that apply are the ones in the owners' own written agreement, if they have one, and the general law of co-ownership.

Leasehold prepaid-Strata and First Nations Lease both mean the land is leased, so what you buy lasts as long as the lease. The listing often shows the year the lease ends. A leased home can be a good home, and the lease is the document that decides what happens when it ends.

Why the kind of title matters more for a multiplex than for a condo

In a tower of 200 apartments, one owner's choices make little difference to the strata, and a professional manager often runs it. A multiplex strata has 2, 3 or 4 owners. The Standard Bylaws put every owner on council when there are fewer than 4 lots, so you are one of the people running the building from the day you move in.

That makes the rules about votes, repairs and insurance personal. In a fourplex, one owner who wants a new roof and three who do not is a meeting you will sit in. In a duplex, two owners who disagree have no tie-breaking vote at all, because Standard Bylaws 18(2) and 27(6) switch off the president's deciding vote when a strata plan has only 2 lots.

A shared title with no strata goes further. There is no council, no bylaws and no statute telling you who pays for what. Everything rests on the agreement the owners signed, and when there is no agreement, the fallback is a court application under the Partition of Property Act.

In our view this is the single most important thing to understand before you shop for a duplex. Two halves of a duplex can be listed at similar prices, look the same, and come with different legal answers to the question 'what happens if my neighbour and I disagree?'

What changes from one title to the next in daily life

Insurance is the first difference you will feel. In a strata, the strata corporation must insure the building at full replacement value under section 149, and you buy your own policy for your contents, your improvements, your liability and the strata deductible. In a bare land strata, the Province's guidance says the owner insures the home on the lot and should ask the insurer about a bare land endorsement. On a shared title with no strata, the co-owners arrange the building insurance between themselves.

Repairs follow the same lines. Standard Bylaw 8 makes a strata repair the structure and outside of every strata lot, except in a bare land strata. Standard Bylaw 2 makes you repair the inside of your own home. On a shared title, the agreement between the owners decides it, and without an agreement nobody is clearly responsible.

Property tax is the third. Section 67 of the Strata Property Act makes each strata lot, with its share of the common property, a separate parcel for assessment and tax, so each home gets its own assessment. A shared title is one parcel of land, so the co-owners have to agree how one bill is split.

Selling is the last. A strata lot or a bare land strata lot is sold on its own, and the buyer orders an information certificate (Form B) from the strata within one week of asking. A share of a shared title is harder to sell, because a buyer is buying into a partnership with the other owner, and many buyers will want to read and sign the same agreement first.

• Insurance: strata for the building, you for the contents and the deductible, in a strata home.
• Repairs: the strata for the outside of a strata home; you for a home in a bare land strata.
• Tax: one assessment per strata lot; one assessment for the whole parcel on a shared title.
• Selling: on your own for a strata or bare land lot; together with your co-owner, in practice, for a shared title.

Mistakes buyers make about title

The first mistake is reading 'freehold' as 'no strata, no rules'. Freehold Strata is still a strata, with bylaws, a budget and a contingency reserve fund. Since November 1, 2023, at least 10% of the yearly operating budget must go to that fund, and the rule applies to a duplex strata as much as to a tower.

The second is assuming that a half duplex means you own half the land under you. In a conventional strata duplex, the yard beside your door is usually common property, sometimes set aside for your use only as limited common property. In a bare land strata duplex, the yard may be part of your lot. Only the strata plan tells you which.

The third is buying a share of a shared title without a written co-ownership agreement, or with one that does not say what happens when one owner wants to sell. The Partition of Property Act lets any co-owner ask a court for a sale, and if owners of half or more of the property ask for it, the court must order a sale unless it sees good reason not to.

The fourth is skipping the title search. A title costs $11.06 to read through the land title office, according to its fee listing as at April 1, 2026, and it shows every mortgage, lien and right registered against the property. Your lawyer or notary will search it before completion, and reading it before you write an offer lets you ask questions while you still have time.

The fifth, on leased land, is not asking when the lease ends and what happens then. The answer is in the lease, and a buyer should read it, with a lawyer, before making an offer.

How to choose, if you have a choice

Many buyers do not choose the title. They choose a home, and the title comes with it. Still, if you are comparing two homes you like, the title can be the deciding factor, and it is worth thinking through in advance.

A strata home gives you the most protection from your neighbours' choices, because the Strata Property Act sets out how money is collected, how votes work, how insurance is bought and how disputes are heard by the Civil Resolution Tribunal. The cost is a monthly strata fee and a share in decisions you cannot make alone.

A bare land strata gives you more control over your own home, because you insure and repair it, and the strata looks after only what is shared. The cost is that a big repair to your home is yours alone, with no reserve fund behind it.

A shared title with no strata can work well between people who trust each other and have signed a full agreement, such as two branches of one family. Between strangers, in our view, it carries the most risk of the four, because the law gives each owner the power to force a sale and gives neither of them a council, a budget or a tribunal designed for the case.

If you are not sure which kind of title a home has, ask us. We can read the listing's ownership field and the strata plan with you, and show you the difference on homes for sale today.

Everything in this guide

Each page below answers one question in full. Read them in order or jump to the one you need.

Questions buyers ask

Also worth reading

• Strata for multiplexesHow a small strata is run: council, votes, fees and bylaws
• Half duplex or multiplexHow a half duplex compares with a home in a triplex or fourplex
• Strata documents before you buyThe papers to read, and what to look for in each
• How title is held in a familyJoint tenancy and tenancy in common between relatives
• Strata insuranceThe building policy, your own policy and the deductible