10 Livonia Condos, 10 Livonia Pl: 1976 Townhouses With Yards

10 Livonia Place is not a condo in the way most buyers picture one. It is a 1976 complex of 99 townhouses off Neilson Road in Morningside, where you get stairs, a backyard and a basement, and the corporation looks after the shared ground. For a family that has been priced out of a freehold house in Scarborough, that is the whole pitch, and it holds up only if the corporation has kept pace with a 50-year-old complex. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Townhouse living under a condo corporation

Condos.ca lists this complex as a townhouse condominium of 99 homes, built in 1976 near Neilson Road and Purple Dusk Trail. These are ground-oriented homes with their own front doors, not suites off a corridor, and that is the reason families put it on a shortlist.

Listings in the complex describe the classic 1970s Scarborough townhouse format: a main floor with kitchen, living and dining rooms and a walkout to a small backyard, bedrooms upstairs, and a basement below. Some homes have four bedrooms upstairs, which you will not find in a condo apartment at anything like this price.

Listings here have included homes with unfinished basements. That is a cost if you want the space now, and an opportunity if you want to add a family room or office over time. Before you plan any renovation, ask management what the declaration and rules allow and whether the corporation needs to approve the work.

Parking in the listings I reviewed is a private garage with the driveway in front of it, plus visitor parking for guests. Confirm the arrangement for the exact home, because in older townhouse corporations the garage and driveway can be part of the unit or an exclusive-use common element, and the declaration decides who repairs what.

Two Livonia corporations on one street

Livonia Place has a second complex. 11 and 21 Livonia Place, across the road, is listed separately on condos.ca, which means a different corporation with its own budget, board and reserve fund. Buyers searching the street mix the two up all the time.

Make sure the listing you are reading is YCC-295 at 10 or 20 Livonia, and that the status certificate you receive carries that number. Fees, rules and the capital plan will not match between the two, even when the homes look alike from the curb.

The pairing is useful in one way. When you want comparables, 11 Livonia is the closest like-for-like complex you will find, built for the same kind of buyer. Ask how each corporation has handled roofs, windows and paving and you get a good sense of what is normal on this street.

What a 1976 complex means for your budget

This complex is close to 50 years old. In a townhouse corporation of that age, the big items are roofs, windows and patio doors, fencing, the private roadway and parking surfaces, and the underground services. Some of these will have been replaced already; others come around in waves.

Read the reserve fund study for the year each item was last done and when it is next planned. Then read the declaration for the split of responsibility. In many older Ontario townhouse corporations the owner looks after some exterior pieces and the corporation the rest, and that split changes what your fee is really buying.

Heat and hydro are not on the fee inclusion list, so each home pays its own. Ask the seller for a year of utility bills, and ask how old the furnace, air conditioner and water heater are and whether any of them are rented. In a home this age those are your costs, not the corporation’s.

Daily life in Morningside

Morningside is the pocket of Scarborough bounded by Highway 401 to the north, Morningside Avenue to the east, West Highland Creek and Lawrence Avenue to the south and Scarborough Golf Club Road to the west. It is a quiet, mostly residential area of houses and townhouse complexes.

Two things stand out for daily life. Morningside Park runs along the southern edge of the neighbourhood, a city park along the creek that gives you green space for walks and weekend bike rides. Tam Heather Country Club on Military Trail has curling and covered tennis courts, which is a rare local option in winter.

Listings here point to Centenary hospital, the 401 and local shopping within easy reach. For most families this is a driving neighbourhood with transit for the commute. The data panel on this page shows the transit, schools and Walk Score figures, so I will not repeat them here.

Reading the price and the fee

Pricing data here is thin. At the time of writing there was a single home for sale and none for rent, so there is no active range I can responsibly give you, and I will not quote one listing’s price or fee. The sold-data panel on this page is a better guide than any single asking price.

What I can tell you is how to read the fee. It covers common elements, building insurance, water and cable TV, and nothing else. Because heat and hydro are separate, compare it with other townhouse complexes on the same basis, not with a high-rise where the fee often carries heat and hydro.

When you compare against freehold, add the fee to the mortgage payment and set the total beside a freehold townhouse or semi nearby. The question is whether the monthly saving is large enough to justify sharing big decisions with 98 neighbours.

Building specifications

Amenities at 10 Livonia Condos

There is no amenity building to pay for here, and I count that as a feature. Your fee goes to roofs, roads, grounds and insurance rather than a gym or party room you might never use.

Jatin’s honest take on 10 Livonia Condos

10 Livonia Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at Scarborough Bluffs, West Hill, Guildwood, Woburn, Malvern and Rouge more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.