A stacked townhouse in Toronto is a townhouse built above or below another unit rather than beside it, so your neighbours sit over your ceiling and under your floor instead of only on the other side of a wall. Nearly all of them are registered as condominiums, which means a monthly fee and a condo corporation.
The usual arrangement puts two homes in a single vertical stack inside a low-rise block of three or four storeys. The lower home takes the ground level and often a finished basement with a small patio. The upper home begins partway up an exterior stair and occupies the top two floors, frequently with a rooftop terrace standing in for a backyard. Every unit opens directly to the outdoors, and that is what separates the format from a condo apartment reached through an interior corridor.
Ownership is the part buyers misread most often. Because the units sit on top of one another, the land beneath cannot be split cleanly between them, so the land and the building shell belong to a condominium corporation created under Ontario's Condominium Act, 1998. You own your unit and pay a monthly fee toward the roof, exterior walls, windows, landscaping, snow clearing, common element insurance, and the reserve fund. Condo maintenance fees on a stacked town usually run lower than on a comparable apartment in a tower, because there is no elevator, concierge, or pool to pay for. That also sets it apart from a freehold townhouse, where you hold title to the land and fund every repair yourself.
Order the status certificate early. It shows what the corporation holds in reserve, whether a special assessment is on the horizon, and how the rules handle pets, rentals, and renovations. Ask for the fee history too. A newer stacked community with a thin reserve can raise fees quickly once the first roof comes due.
Sound behaves differently here. You share floors and ceilings, not just side walls, so footsteps overhead or a furnace below register in a way they would not in a traditional row. Stairs are a daily fact of life, and upper units rarely get the storage a basement would provide. What you get in exchange is price. In the same neighbourhood a stacked town typically lists below a traditional or freehold townhouse, which is why the format shows up so often on the shortlists of buyers who cannot stretch to a full row house.
Related reading: What Is a Reserve Fund When Buying a Toronto Condo?, What Is a Special Assessment in a Condo?, and What Is the Difference Between a Condo and an Apartment in Toronto?.