Condo, co-op, or townhouse - any legal difference?

On Feb 23, 7:20 am, "Stuart A. Bronstein" <spamt...@lexregia.com> wrote:

> I don't think the words "co-op," "townhouse" or "condo" have any
> particular legal meaning in California.

Stu, I'm surprised you're unaware of this.  I think you've overlooked the fact that condos and co-ops are a creature of statute that do not exist at common law, and CA is full of them.  AFAIK CA does indeed recognize and authorize the form of ownership of land called "condominium" (literally, "multiple individuals each owning a piece of the pie as well as a share of the crust") as well as real estate ownership by cooperatives (of course, CA recognizes other kinds of co-ops too: Sunkist, e.g. is a cooperative of individual citrus growers).

I just did a quick Google search on "California condominium law" and got over a million hits.  One of which was for something called the 2007 Condominium Bluebook (found at www.condobook.com), touted as "a comprehensive overview of California condominium law" and which references something called the "Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act" as well as other "relevant California statutory law" on the subject of condos.

There were also over a million hits on my next search, for "California real estate cooperative law" including, at top of the list, a compendium of over 600 books discussing the subject.  An example, verbatim from the first Google blurb:

"California Real Estate Law, 5e - Page 264
by Robert J Bruss - 2002 - 518 pages
Developments of five or more cooperative units fall under the jurisdiction of
the real estate commissioner. Cooperatives with four or fewer units are under ...":

It seems CA does statutorily recognize both co-ops and condos as different non-common-law forms of ownership of real property.

AFAIK you're right about "townhouse."  Around here in Bawlamer ("Baltimore") they're called "row houses" unless the neighborhood is trying to be uppity.   All it means is you've got adjacent multi-story single-family houses with a shared or abutting side wall between them and zero side setback.   I would imagine CA does have zoning laws regulating setback so that townhouses are permitted only in certain places, but otherwise a townhouse is a plain ol' common law fee simple ownership of a single family home that just happens to rub up against the neighbors'.   I guess an entire townhouse development could also be owned by a condo or co-op association and parceled out to its members, but that has nothing to do with the fact that this development contains the type of building called a townhouse.   OTOH only condos or co-ops can legally parcel out ownership shares in a multi-story building in which different owners' spaces lie on top of one another.   That's because at common law, ownership of land meant everything on, above, or below the surface of the piece of land (which works fine with individual townhomes) but there was no legal basis to sell e.g. just the second story of a building, or just a single apt. on any floor

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