THE GREEN LINE GUIDE TO...
co-ownership
Lesli Gaynor (left) and Parimal Gosai (right) co-founded Husmates, an app that matches people who are looking into co-ownernship.
: Provided by Lesli Gaynor.
Sahaana Ranganathan
Toronto Metropolitan University Master of Journalism graduate with a passion for community-based storytelling. Currently living in the Annex. Always down to get matcha or milk teaÂ
Jan. 5, 2026
When Lesli Gaynor was 25, she bought a home with two friends.
She had been in a vulnerable tenancy as a single mom. Her landlord would constantly put notes on her door warning her that she'll have to leave for the landlord's brother to move in.
So, she did what everyone dreams of doing at some point: She bought her own place — with co-owners.
Lesli and her two friends lived in the same house in different units, took care of their kids together and shared a backyard for seven years.
“It stuck with me as the best decision I ever made,” says Gaynor, who's a co-founder of Husmates, an app that matches people who are looking into co-ownership.
Houses for sale in Toronto. Adjusting for inflation, the average home now costs four times more today than it did 50 years ago.
: Anthony Lippa-Hardy/The Green Line.
Co-ownership is when two or more buyers jointly purchase a house through a legal and financial partnership.
“I'd say that it [co-purchasing] is the way people can come together, bringing their own resources, both financial and income, and combining those resources to purchase real estate,” Gaynor says.
The benefits can include dividing the costs of the down payment, mortgage and maintenance fees, as well as living in an intentional community.
This doesn’t mean that co-ownership is an easy solution for everyone. It requires an understanding of the risk involved and a willingness to commit.
In this guide, Gaynor breaks down how to determine if co-ownership is right for you and the steps you can take to get started.
Part one: Getting started
1. Are you the right person for co-ownership? Not everyone wants to live with their friends or family, so it's important to figure out if this is something that you want to commit to.
2. Consider what your ideal home looks like. Do you want to share everything and have cooperative common spaces? Do you want to split up space into private units?
3. Consider if you're willing to share more than just space. For example, can someone provide child care?
Gaynor explains that in her experience, co-ownership allowed her more freedom.
“My son had other moms,” says Gaynor. “I had a life because when he was a baby, I could leave the baby monitor upstairs and go and get milk or groceries.”
4. Once you understand your needs and wants, then you can start looking for other compatible buyers. Once you find them, you can move forward with the process.Â
For Gaynor, her co-buyers were her friends. Another common scenario is when adult kids co-own a property with their parents.
Sometimes, the other co-buyers could be people with shared values. Gaynor made the app Husmates with her co-founder Parimal Gosai to help people find compatible matches for co-ownership.Â
Part Two: Determining your financial model
5. Determine each person's financial history, credit score and debt.
6. Understand your group’s total available funds for a down payment and closing costs.Â
7. Determine your group's income for total monthly mortgage payments.
Important note: different lenders have different limitations. For example, some allow a certain number of people on the mortgage, some require a credit score of 680 or higher and some won't allow non-family members on the application.Â
8. Understand how accountability, equity and decision making will be organized. Will it be equal or distributed differently?
“Not everyone has the same amount of money, and that's really true in multi-generational groups,” says Gaynor.
In this context, it’s important to understand how you would want to organize your property when it comes to equity and decision making.Â
A multi-generational group is usually composed of older parents with more capital and adult kids who might not have as much capital in the beginning stages of co-ownership. Gaynor explains that if the parents come in with 60 per cent of the money to make the purchase, they could own 60 per cent of the property. However sometimes, it doesn't make sense for parents with fixed incomes to be responsible for 60 per cent of the repairs, so the adult kids might bear that cost.
Part Three: Creating a group agreement
9. Creating a group agreement helps facilitate the conditions the group needs to co-purchase and live together.
This is related to the personal needs and values of the group, as opposed to the legal aspects of co-ownership, which we’ll cover in the next part.Â
For example, what do you want to commit to? How sick is too sick to be in a household of people? Do you want to build a community with your group? Does your group have a collective philosophy? How do you want to deal with different types of conflicts?Â
Gaynor says that her friends didn't actually have a group agreement at the time.Â
“We were very lucky. We all had social work backgrounds. We were all committed to communication,” says Gaynor. “We were able to do it, but it could've been a disaster.”Â
Many changes and challenges can arise in a co-ownership journey. For example, a group of best friends who enter into co-ownership together can't assume that their friendship will never change.
If one person in the co-ownership agreement gets into a relationship, then their partner could become a new owner to consider when making decisions.Â
10. Schedule regular communication. This will help with any conflicts. It can be meetings or a group chat.Â
While it can seem risky, Gaynor says that it’s important to get creative about home-ownership.Â
“There are so many ways people get so hung up on not being able to see creative solutions, because we are so narrow-minded when it comes to living and being accountable to anyone else,” she explains. “We do it in our romantic relationships without a lot of questioning. We take on all kinds of joint responsibilities.”
Part four: Creating a legal agreement
11. You have two options when it comes to co-ownership. You can buy property as tenants in common or joint tenants.Â
Joint tenancy is a type of ownership where survivorship exists. This means that when one of the owners dies, their share of the ownership passes on to the surviving co-owners in equal or unequal portions.
Tenants in common is a type of ownership where if one of the owners dies, their share doesn't go to the other co-owners. Instead, it's be distributed based on the deceased owner’s will.
12. Some things to consider in a legal agreement are rights and responsibilities, financial obligations, future scenarios like death, divorce or if someone defaults on a mortgage payment.
Part five: Finding your property
13. Get mortgage pre-approval, a real estate agent and a home inspector.
14. Search for a house.Â
15. When you’re ready to make an offer on a house, discuss the price and the conditions you want to offer.Â
16. Consider what renovations will be needed for the property.Â
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