---
title: "Glossary of housing terms"
url: https://teacherspaceny.com/glossary/
description: "Sixty plain-language definitions of the housing, transaction, mortgage and ownership terms used across this reference."
published: 2026-08-17
updated: 2026-08-17
---

# Glossary of housing terms

Published 2026-08-17

Reference · 61 entries · revised August 2026

The vocabulary used across the guides, in one list. Diagram drawn for this page; schematic, not to scale.

These are the terms that recur across the guides, defined as they are used here. Where a word carries a different technical meaning in a particular contract or statute, that document governs and this list does not.

A B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U V Z

## A

**Abatement**: A temporary reduction in property tax granted to a building, usually with a stated expiry date.

**Amortisation**: The schedule by which a loan's balance is repaid in full over its term.

**Appraisal**: A lender's valuation of a property as security for a loan. It is not an inspection.

**Assessment (building)**: A one-off charge levied on unit owners for work the reserves do not cover.

**Assessment (tax)**: The value a municipality assigns to a property for the purpose of taxing it.

## B

**Basis**: The recorded cost of a property, used to calculate gain when it is later sold.

**Board package**: The financial and personal documentation a co-operative board requires from a purchaser.

## C

**Chain of title**: The unbroken sequence of recorded transfers leading to the present owner.

**Closing**: The meeting or process at which funds move and the deed is delivered.

**Closing costs**: The taxes, fees and prepayments due at closing, payable in cash and not borrowable.

**Co-operative**: An ownership form in which shares in a corporation carry a lease of an apartment.

**Common charge**: A condominium's monthly charge for operating the building's shared elements.

**Common elements**: The parts of a condominium owned jointly by all unit owners.

**Comparable**: A recently sold property similar enough to be used as price evidence.

**Condominium**: An ownership form in which a unit is owned outright as real property.

**Contingency**: A condition in a contract that must be satisfied before the parties are bound to complete.

**Covenant**: A recorded promise limiting how land may be used, binding on later owners.

## D

**Days on market**: How long a property has been advertised before going under contract.

**Deed**: The instrument that transfers ownership of real property.

**Default**: Failure to meet an obligation under a loan or lease.

**Deposit**: Money paid on contract, held pending completion; also the cash portion of a purchase price.

**DTI**: Debt-to-income: total monthly obligations expressed as a share of gross monthly income.

## E

**Easement**: A right held by someone else to use part of the land, such as access or a utility run.

**Encroachment**: A structure that crosses a boundary onto neighbouring land.

**Encumbrance**: Any recorded claim or burden against a property.

**Equity**: The value of a property less what is owed against it.

**Escrow**: Money held by a third party, or a monthly sum collected for tax and insurance.

## F

**Fixed rate**: An interest rate that does not change for the term of the loan.

**Flip tax**: A transfer fee payable to a co-operative when shares are sold.

**Floor area ratio**: The permitted floor area of a building expressed as a multiple of its lot area.

**Freehold**: Ownership of land and the buildings on it without a time limit.

## G

**Ground lease**: A long lease of the land beneath a building, held separately from the building.

## H

**Historic district**: An area whose exteriors are protected from alteration by designation.

## I

**Inventory**: The stock of properties currently advertised for sale in an area.

## L

**Lien**: A recorded claim securing a debt against a property.

**List-to-sale ratio**: The relationship between asking prices and achieved prices.

**LTV**: Loan-to-value: the loan expressed as a share of the property's appraised value.

## M

**Maintenance**: A co-operative's monthly charge, typically including tax and the underlying mortgage.

**Months of supply**: How long current inventory would last at the current rate of sale.

**Mortgage**: A loan secured on real property; also the instrument creating that security.

**Mortgage insurance**: Insurance protecting the lender where the loan-to-value ratio is high.

**Multi-family**: A building containing more than one dwelling unit.

## N

**Non-invasive**: An examination made without opening, lifting or excavating any part of a building.

## O

**Offering plan**: The document setting out the terms on which units in a building are offered.

**Origination fee**: A lender's charge for making a loan.

## P

**Points**: A fee paid at closing to reduce the interest rate on a loan.

**Principal**: The amount of a loan still owed, excluding interest.

**Proprietary lease**: The lease of an apartment that a co-operative's shares carry.

## R

**Reserve fund**: Money a building holds against future major repairs.

**Right of first refusal**: A board's right to buy a unit on the same terms as an outside purchaser.

## S

**Setback**: A required distance between a building and a boundary, or a step in a building's profile.

**Sponsor unit**: A unit still held by the party that converted or built the building.

**Stoop**: The raised entrance stair characteristic of a row house.

**Sub-market**: A dwelling type, area and price band within which properties genuinely compete.

**Survey**: A drawing establishing legal boundaries and the position of structures within them.

## T

**Tenement**: A nineteenth-century multiple dwelling built to a narrow, deep lot.

**Title insurance**: One-off cover against defects in title existing before the purchase.

**Turnover**: How frequently properties in an area change hands.

## U

**Underwriting**: A lender's assessment of a borrower's capacity and the security offered.

## V

**Variance**: Permission to depart from a zoning requirement in a specific case.

## Z

**Zoning**: The rules governing what may be built on a parcel and how it may be used.