What is Co-Ownership?
Co-ownership is partnering to buy a property, an agreement between two or more parties to purchase a property. You can co-own with members of your family, friends or anyone else who’s like-minded.
The parties will often work with a lender partner such as a bank who provides a mortgage to enable the purchase. Your rights and obligations will be set out in a co-ownership agreement that meets your individual and collective needs as purchasers, and the needs of the lending institution. This agreement will clarify what you can and cannot do with the property and will cover a breadth of topics ranging from ownership shares to decision-making processes, to property management and maintenance.
GoCo will work with you to make sure that the process is simple, secure and addresses your needs.
Why Co-Ownership?
There are many reasons people consider co-ownership when purchasing a property. It can be a way to help first-time buyers enter the housing market, help other to build equity for retirement, or even to establish and grow a community.
Partnering to buy a property is not a new idea. In fact, it has been a means for newcomer families to step onto the property ladder for a long time. It’s also popular to buy part of a house in countries such as the UK.
Co-ownership is a way of thinking differently to live a better life. Get started to explore whether co-ownership could benefit you.
Co-Ownership Models
As co-ownership is a new concept in Canada, we often think about it in a specific way. People predominantly think of joint ownership either as two families sharing a home, or as a family co-owning a home with an investor that does not live with them. While this is sometimes the case, situations vary greatly by circumstance.
Home co-ownership is an agreement between two or more parties to purchase an asset together. As individual parties, you have the opportunity and right to define the agreement to best suit your needs. For example, you could have:
two partners with equal share and equal decision-making power
one partner with a majority share and one or more investors
three partners who live in the house and one investor with an agreement to consensus-based decision making
The design of the co-ownership agreement is up to the parties involved while taking into consideration the needs of any financial lenders. More information about co-ownership agreements is available on our Establish Agreement page.
Learn more about the ins and outs of co-ownership using the sections below:
GoCo Solutions can help you as much or as little as needed throughout your co-ownership process. We can help you get over the hurdles, assist in finding potential partners, connect you to the financial institutions, that provide the right co-ownership products and introduce you to lawyers who can help draw up solid legal agreements.
