Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> OIC, I'm not sure either.  Could you basically walk away from it if you 
> wanted to?

Yes. With a term of notice of one month.

It's a mode of ownership where you kind of "half-buy" the apartment. This
means you pay something like 15% (IIRC) of its full price, and when you
move out, you get that money back (inflation-adjusted).

It's different from a rental in that with a rental you don't pay anything
but the rent, and you have less rights to the apartment.

> A condominium is a type of dwelling, not a use arrangement.  Condos tend 
> to have the "association fees" I mentioned before to cover things like 
> care for common areas on the property and whatnot, but the condo itself 
> has a separate payment made either to a landlord (as a rental) or a 
> mortgage company (as a purchase).

> What's the word in Finnish that describes it?

I think the Finnish term that most accurately corresponds to this is
"asunto-osake", which literally means "apartment share" (as in a stock
market share). I think that you literally buy a share (in the exact same
way as you would buy shares of any compnay) and you own the apartment as
property. The apartment is usually located in a building and you have to
pay a (relatively small) monthly fee for the maintenance (which would be
exactly a "condo fee", AFAIK).

This form of living is a bit like that, except you don't actually own the
apartment as property, although you have much more rights to it than with
a rented apartment.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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