How Property is Defined Around the World

In a physical sense, apartments, flats, and condominiums are structurally the same thing. The term, ‘apartment’ is mostly used in the US. ‘Flat’ is the British equivalent and Canadians prefer ‘condominium’. Regardless of terminology and location, each is defined as a set of rooms on a particular floor that are used as a residence for individuals and families.

The word ‘maisonette’ is a French word meaning ‘small house’. Collins describes it as a flat that usually has a separate door to the outside from other flats in the same building and many are built across two floors. In America, the definition is a little different. In the US, a small house is listed as just that… A small house. But a maisonette is not a house, it’s a ground floor apartment that has its own street-level entrance. Some have private access from the lobby, as opposed to the street. However, in Europe, whether a maisonette is a house or a flat is a matter of perspective.

The real estate industry refers to single-family homes that sit on their own lot without sharing any walls with another home or building as detached residences.
In the US, you would search for a single-family house with a yard. The British would search for a detached house with a garden. In the UK, the term single-family home is virtually unknown, except through internet exposure to US media. In America, housing is commonly divided into ‘single-family homes’ and ‘apartments’. The British divide property between ‘houses’ and ‘flats’.

A semi-detached house is a single home sharing a wall and roof with a neighbour. In Europe and the UK, semi-detached houses are built in pairs with each house being a mirror image of the other. Often referred to as a ‘semi’, the name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses.
A duplex , the American equivalent, is a multi-family home that has two units in the same building. These two units always share a common wall, but the floor plan can vary. Units can be arranged either side by side or stacked on top of each other. Each occupies an entire floor or two of the building.

A townhouse is a self-contained property, sometimes attached and sometimes freestanding, within a complex of three or more homes.
Row houses are groupings of identical or nearly identical low-rise homes, lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and sharing both a roofline and one or both side walls. They’re also known as terraced houses in the U.K., Australia, and elsewhere. The primary difference between townhouses and row houses is in how they’re arranged. Row houses are, as the name suggests, lined up all in a row, while townhouses can often be configured differently.