Strata vs Torrens vs community title: the three Australian title types and what you actually own

A Torrens title owner controls the dirt and the bricks. A strata title owner controls the air inside the apartment lines and shares the bricks with neighbours via a body corporate vote. A community title owner sits between the two and pays for shared roads and amenities that no council maintains. Same suburb, three different ownership realities, three very different cost and decision trade-offs.

The contract you sign at a property auction or private treaty looks almost identical across the three. The thing you actually buy is not. Knowing which title type sits under the listing changes what you read on the contract, what you ask the conveyancer to chase, and what your annual ownership cost looks like for the next decade.

Torrens title: the standard freehold

Torrens is the default. The Torrens system records title on a state-run register; the register is proof of ownership, not a chain of historical deeds the buyer has to reconstruct. Every state and territory in Australia runs a Torrens land registry, and most stand-alone houses on their own block are held under Torrens title.

A Torrens lot has one owner (or one tenancy) controlling the whole parcel end to end. There is no owners corporation, no community association, and no shared common property to vote on. The owner pays council rates, organises their own building insurance, and chooses their own tradies for maintenance. Planning rules and the Building Code still apply, but the day-to-day decisions sit with the title holder.

• What you own: the lot defined on the deposited plan, including the dwelling, fences, and improvements on it.
• Annual fees beyond council rates: none mandatory. Insurance and maintenance are owner-managed.
• Decision rights: yours, subject to the local planning scheme and the BCA.
• Due diligence: title search, deposited plan, planning certificate. Any easements, covenants, or caveats show on the title.

A separate piece on easements, encumbrances, and caveats on title walks through what each of those entries actually does to a freehold parcel; it is worth reading before the title search lands.

Strata title: lot lines drawn inside a building

Strata title was created in NSW under the Conveyancing (Strata Titles) Act 1961 and is now mirrored by legislation in every state and territory. The mechanism subdivides a building into individual lots plus common property. Each lot holder owns the interior airspace of the lot and the fixtures attached to it. The walls between units, the roof, the foundations, the lift, the lobby, the driveway, and the external skin of the building are common property.

An owners corporation (or body corporate, depending on the state) manages the common property. Decisions sit with owners voting at meetings, with vote weighting set by unit entitlements registered on the strata plan. Most ordinary resolutions need a majority vote. Major changes to common property or the by-laws typically need a special resolution, which is a higher threshold (often 75% by unit entitlement).

• What you own: the lot boundary as drawn on the strata plan. Typically the inside face of the structural walls, the floor surface, and the ceiling surface, plus the fixtures attached to the lot.
• What you share: structure, external walls, roof, common driveways, lobbies, lifts, gardens, pools, and most plumbing and electrical risers.
• Annual fees: council rates plus body corporate fees, which split into an administration fund (day-to-day running) and a sinking or capital works fund (long-cycle replacements). Typically $3,000 to $10,000 per year for a standard apartment, $15,000 or more for premium buildings with concierge, pools, or gyms.
• Special levies: one-off contributions for major works the sinking fund cannot cover. Roof replacements, facade repairs, and defect litigation fees are the common triggers.
• Decision rights: the owners corporation votes on anything affecting common property. Renovations touching windows, balconies, plumbing, or structural walls need approval. Pets, short-term rentals, and parking allocations are all governed by by-laws.

Community title: freehold lots plus shared estate

Community title came into NSW under the Community Land Development Act 1989, with equivalents in Queensland, Victoria, SA, and WA under different statutes. The format is used for master-planned estates, gated communities, some resorts, and large townhouse developments where the roads and amenities sit outside the council network.

A community title owner has a freehold lot, similar to Torrens, plus an undivided share in common property held through a community association. The common property is whatever the developer set aside: private roads, parks, pools, gates, tennis courts, sometimes water and sewer infrastructure. The community association handles maintenance, insurance, and rules for that shared property.

• What you own: the freehold lot (typically a house or townhouse on its own parcel) plus a share in the community parcel.
• Annual fees: council rates plus community association fees, typically $1,500 to $5,000 per year for residential estates. Lower than strata because the dwelling itself is freehold-maintained, not insured or repaired by the association.
• Decision rights: the dwelling is the owner's. Anything touching the shared estate or the architectural look of the lot exterior is association business. Estates often have an architectural code that constrains paint colours, fencing, and roof materials on the dwelling itself.
• Special levies: triggered by big-ticket shared infrastructure (resurfacing a private road, replacing pool plant, repairing a perimeter wall).

Voting power and unit entitlements

Strata votes are weighted by unit entitlement, a number registered on the strata plan at scheme registration. Entitlements are usually proportional to the lot's value or area, so a three-bedroom penthouse carries more votes than a one-bedroom studio. The bigger lot pays a bigger share of the body corporate budget and gets a louder vote on how it's spent. The two scale together.

Community title runs a similar logic. Lot entitlements usually track lot area or value, with both fees and votes weighted the same way. Buyers in either scheme should check the entitlement schedule on the plan before committing; an undersized entitlement means lower fees and a quieter vote, while an oversized entitlement means the opposite.

The annual cost picture

Same Sydney suburb, three properties at $850,000. Same suburb, same price, very different annual ownership cost.

• Torrens: three-bed house on its own block. Council rates near $2,400 a year. Building and contents insurance roughly $1,800. Maintenance reserve (annualised across a ten-year horizon for paint, roof, gutters, hot water, and small repairs) around $3,800. Annual ownership cost lands near $8,000.
• Strata: two-bed unit in a 50-unit block. Council rates near $1,400. Body corporate admin plus sinking fund contributions around $9,000 combined, with building insurance bundled into the strata levy. Annual ownership cost lands near $10,400, plus exposure to special levies if defect or major works arise.
• Community title: three-bed townhouse in a gated estate. Council rates near $1,800. Community association fees around $3,000 covering the private roads, gardens, and gate. Insurance owner-arranged at roughly $1,500. Maintenance reserve around $1,000 (lower than the freehold house because some external works fall to the association). Annual ownership cost lands near $7,300.

Compounded over ten years at 3% annual cost inflation (the standard fee-growth assumption when nothing else is known), the three trajectories diverge. Using the ten-year annuity factor at 3% (roughly 11.46), the Torrens ownership cost totals near $91,700, the strata path near $119,200, and the community-title path near $83,700. The cheapest of the three is the community title, the most expensive is the strata, and the gap between them is around $35,000 over the decade before any special levies show up. The buying cost calculator will help layer purchase costs on top of the ongoing ownership picture.

For investors, the same numbers feed into a yield calculation. A $850,000 strata unit renting for $620 a week has a gross rental yield near 3.8%; after body corporate fees, rates, and management, net yield can fall closer to 2.4%. The rental yield calculator is the cleanest way to compare strata and community title against a Torrens-titled house on the same street.

Due diligence by title type

The contract review changes shape depending on the title type.

• Torrens: a title search plus the deposited plan and the relevant planning certificate. Easements, covenants, and caveats show on the title and should be read with the conveyancer.
• Strata: in NSW, request the section 184 strata information certificate plus a section 182 inspection of the records (formerly the section 108 certificate under the older Act). In Victoria, the owners corporation certificate sits inside the section 151 disclosure. The certificate shows the financial position, recent meeting minutes, the ten-year capital works plan, any defect litigation, insurance cover, and the current and projected levies.
• Community title: an equivalent certificate from the community association plus the management statement, which is the binding rulebook on the lot. The architectural code, if there is one, sits in the management statement and runs with the land.

Strata and community title certificates are where the defect history, the special levy history, and the unfunded liabilities surface. A scheme with a depleted sinking fund and a known facade defect can carry a five-figure levy in the buyer's first year of ownership. The companion piece on strata fees and the body corporate breaks down each line item in a typical strata budget.

What the title type changes about renovation

A Torrens owner repaints, replaces the kitchen, or rebuilds the deck without asking anyone except the council where approvals are required. A strata owner can paint and re-kitchen the interior of the lot, but anything touching common property (windows, balcony tiling, structural walls, plumbing risers, air conditioning condensers on the balcony) needs the owners corporation's consent. A community title owner can renovate the dwelling but is bound by the architectural code on anything visible from outside the lot.

Short-term letting is the other live battleground. Strata by-laws can restrict or ban whole-of-lot Airbnb rentals, and several states allow schemes to pass enforceable bans. Community-title management statements can do the same. Torrens owners face only local-government rules, which are currently lighter in most LGAs.

Insurance: who covers what

Insurance allocation is the cleanest way to see the boundary between the three.

• Torrens: the owner buys building and contents cover. The whole structure is the owner's to insure.
• Strata: the owners corporation insures the building (structure plus common property) under a strata insurance policy paid from levies. The lot owner buys contents and landlord cover for what is inside the lot, plus optional improvements cover for fitouts the owner has installed.
• Community title: the community association insures the common property (private roads, shared facilities, sometimes a perimeter wall). The lot owner insures their own dwelling under a standard building and contents policy. The split looks like Torrens for the dwelling and like strata for the shared infrastructure.

Buying off the plan in any of the three

Off-the-plan stock exists in all three formats but is most common in strata (high-rise apartments) and community title (master-planned house-and-land packages). The risks compound when the title type is strata or community, because the buyer is also agreeing to a budget, by-laws, and an entitlement schedule that are not yet settled. The piece on off-the-plan property risks walks through the failure modes a buyer should price into the deposit decision.

What this changes about how to choose

Title type is not a quality signal on its own. Strata apartments in well-run blocks with healthy sinking funds are cheaper to own than poorly maintained freehold houses with deferred roof and stump issues. Community-title estates with active boards and proper architectural codes hold value better than ungoverned freehold streets where each owner does their own thing.

The decision is not Torrens-good and strata-bad. The decision is reading the certificate, checking the sinking fund balance, looking at the recent meeting minutes, and asking what the levies have done over the last three years. A strata or community title scheme with a quiet by-laws history, a fully funded ten-year capital works plan, and no defect litigation can be a very calm thing to own. One without those traits is the opposite.

On Burbfinder, suburb dossiers surface the median price, rental yield, and vacancy for each area, and the property type filter splits houses (mostly Torrens) from units (mostly strata). The title type sits beneath the listing; the cost picture, decision rights, and risk profile sit downstream of which of the three formats the buyer is actually walking into.