Difference between apartment and flat?

Unregistered39

Hi there,

Can anyone tell me the difference between the two in terms of assessing market value? According to the PRTB website there's about €400 a month difference in rent between the two for a one-bed! I'm looking at a one-bed in a converted Victorian house.

Ta.

kkelliher

Unregistered39 wrote: »

Hi there,

Can anyone tell me the difference between the two in terms of assessing market value? According to the PRTB website there's about €400 a month difference in rent between the two for a one-bed! I'm looking at a one-bed in a converted Victorian house.

Ta.

open to correction

Flat - the bedroom and kitchen are in the same open plan area
apartment - bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms all have their own rooms

Unregistered39

kkelliher wrote: »

open to correction

Flat - the bedroom and kitchen are in the same open plan area
apartment - bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms all have their own rooms

Hi there,

Wouldn't that be a studio? (thank you though!)

kkelliher

Unregistered39 wrote: »

Hi there,

Wouldn't that be a studio? (thank you though!)

now you have me

Boulevardier

In England, I found the 2 terms "apartment" and "flat" to be almost entirely interchangeable, with one caveat: a bedsit was a flat but it was not an apartment. Otherwise, the terms were used synonymously.

In Dublin, the distinction is taken more seriously. "Apartment" tends to be used only for purpose-built flats, and not for flats in converted houses.

In both countries, "Apartment" is never used for council flats, even though these are often apartments in every normal sense.

That is my experience at any rate.

Supercell

There is none, though its come to mean flat is smaller and cheaper and something you rent, an apartment is bigger and more expensive and you buy or pay more to rent.
Its all Celtic tiger nonsense. The Americans call all multi dwelling units Apartments and the British call them Flats.
During the Celtic tiger developers advertised Flats as Apartments to make them seem more glamorous I guess and it stuck (and sticks in my craw!) along with Ugg boots and 4x4 cars for the school run.

When I was renting over 20 years ago Apartments were places "Friends" lived in on TV and Flats were places we live in Ireland and UK.

Unregistered39

Thanks all. I'll get in touch with the PRTB. There must be a recognised distinction between the two for valuation purposes as they are listed separately. And that distinction may be the difference between me finding myself out of my flat/apartment or not!

djimi

Ive always been of the impression that apartment was just a fancier way of saying flat!

marketty

Flats on the Northside = Apartments on the Southside...

Apartments generally come with a management company who charge you a flat fee each year for services such as clamping you in your own parking space and telling you to take your washing in off the balcony

odds_on

djimi wrote: »

Ive always been of the impression that apartment was just a fancier way of saying flat!

A fancier way or an upmarket way.
And therefore, an apartment commands a high rent.

dory

Id agree with the above that it's just a fancier name.

copacetic

Flats are generally in converted houses.

Apartments are purpose built, often in larger blocks.

Occasionally you get a hybrid of a expensively converted house with proper apartments but that would be unusual.

jd

Apsrtments can be sold individually, flats are generally in converted houses all owned by the same individual.

Unregistered39

copacetic wrote: »

Flats are generally in converted houses.

Apartments are purpose built, often in larger blocks.

Occasionally you get a hybrid of a expensively converted house with proper apartments but that would be unusual.

You see, this is what I thought, and it would be good for me if this was the case. I need a super definite answer though. Are you super definite?

copacetic

Unregistered39 wrote: »

You see, this is what I thought, and it would be good for me if this was the case. I need a super definite answer though. Are you super definite?

Well that's a pretty well accepted difference, but I couldn't say that is definitely how it is looked at for your case. The ony way to know that is to find it out directly in their information.

Unregistered39

copacetic wrote: »

Well that's a pretty well accepted difference, but I couldn't say that is definitely how it is looked at for your case. The ony way to know that is to find it out directly in their information.

The thing is I already live here, have done for years. The place has been taken over by a management company and my rent is being reviewed 'in line with market value'. The management company are going to check out the flat/apartment thing for me but while I wait for that I was hoping to put my mind at ease somewhat this evening! Not to worry. Thanks!

hfallada

Unregistered39 wrote: »

Thanks all. I'll get in touch with the PRTB. There must be a recognised distinction between the two for valuation purposes as they are listed separately. And that distinction may be the difference between me finding myself out of my flat/apartment or not!

I think those boxes PRTB forms are just for stats( every PRTB form has a list of questions like size of dwelling, type etc.) rather than have a proper purpose. They also list masonettes which as far as I know there is less than 100 in Dublin. ( I actually know of one road that has about 20 of them in the whole of Dublin).


I would call a flat a room with everything in it( a small room as studios can be about 400-600 sq feet somethings) and has apartment several rooms and always a bathroom unlike a flat.

copacetic

Unregistered39 wrote: »

The thing is I already live here, have done for years. The place has been taken over by a management company and my rent is being reviewed 'in line with market value'. The management company are going to check out the flat/apartment thing for me but while I wait for that I was hoping to put my mind at ease somewhat this evening! Not to worry. Thanks!

I don't think they will look at definitions etc for that, they don't mean anything as they are averaged over wildly varying standards of properties. That's shy apartments are so much higher, there are plenty of low, medium and high spec ones. Whereas there are many less flats around and hardly any large or high spec ones.

They will look for similar places nearby, on daft, ask a quantity surveyor or local estate agent who is qualified to give a market value. I'm sure you can work out a market value yourself.

Richard Dower

Where i am is called an Apartment: open space living area and a masionette/small kitchen on one side....entramce hall to bedroom, bedroom area...bathroom off to side. Own entrance at front and rear.

I agree the term "apartment" is just a way to charge more....you'll know a flat when you see it, usually all crappy partitions, no sound proofing etc.

I was living in a bungalow for ten years, they are all different.

odds_on

jd wrote: »

Apsrtments can be sold individually, flats are generally in converted houses all owned by the same individual.

And what about the flats in Ballymun - they were never called apartments.

Unregistered39

Lots of advice/opinions - thanks all! I reckon my place, spec wise, is somewhere between a flat and an apartment. Let's see which way they lean...

Cedrus

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 has this list.

(i) a description of the dwelling, indicating—

(i) the estimated floor area,

(ii) the number of bed spaces,

(iii) a statement as to which of the following categories it belongs namely, a whole or part of a house, a maisonette, an apartment, a flat or a bedsitter and, in case it falls within the category of a house or maisonette, an indication as to whether the house or maisonette is detached, semi-detached or terraced, and

(iv) the number of bedrooms,

It doesn't go as far as descriptions or definitions but does differentiate between maisonettes, apartments, flat and bedsitters.

Flats and bedsitters are never mentioned again. Maisonettes are mentioned a few times hand in hand with houses. Apartments are repeatedly mentioned in relation to apartment complex.

So, supported by the above, what several posters above had said and my understanding before I ever saw this thread.

Version 1
An apartment is always in a complex with other apartments.
A flat is a discrete domestic accommodation part of another building (could be a subdivision of an older house or a caretakers/granny flat attached to a larger house office or institution).
Bedsitter is a single room accommodation (sometimes even with attached toilet:))
A maisonette is just a two story flat.

Version 2
Apartments are American
Flats are English

Version 3
Yuppies live in Apartments
Poor people live in Flats

Unregistered39

Cedrus wrote: »

The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 has this list.



Version 1
An apartment is always in a complex with other apartments.
A flat is a discrete domestic accommodation part of another building (could be a subdivision of an older house or a caretakers/granny flat attached to a larger house office or institution).
Bedsitter is a single room accommodation (sometimes even with attached toilet:))
A maisonette is just a two story flat.

By this definition, I live in an apartflat, or a flapartment, if you will.

Pawwed Rig

Unregistered39 wrote: »

Lots of advice/opinions - thanks all! I reckon my place, spec wise, is somewhere between a flat and an apartment. Let's see which way they lean...

If you're buying it then call it a flat and when selling it call it an apartment:D

Generally I would go with Boulevardier's definition below

jd

odds_on wrote: »

And what about the flats in Ballymun - they were never called apartments.

All owned by Dublin City Council.

3DataModem

Supercell wrote: »

There is none, though its come to mean flat is smaller and cheaper and something you rent, an apartment is bigger and more expensive and you buy or pay more to rent.
Its all Celtic tiger nonsense. The Americans call all multi dwelling units Apartments and the British call them Flats.
During the Celtic tiger developers advertised Flats as Apartments to make them seem more glamorous I guess and it stuck (and sticks in my craw!) along with Ugg boots and 4x4 cars for the school run.

When I was renting over 20 years ago Apartments were places "Friends" lived in on TV and Flats were places we live in Ireland and UK.

Many Americans refer to them as condominiums. Weird.

Ray Palmer

The old definition was a flat is an entire floor and an apartment is a section of a building floor. As people use the word interchangeably the meaning is lost and they both refer to a section of a building.

Moonbeam

I always think of apts as the nice ones,whether in a converted house or not and flats as the less nice ones and the old type of council flats.
it would be interesting how the PRTB distinguish them.

penana

Isn't it just another example of the creeping Americanisation of the English language? For example, along with flats becoming "apartments," we now have "pharmacies" instead of chemists, "elevators" increasingly in place of lifts, and even on some supermarket shelves, certain types of biscuits suddenly being called, "cookies." But with any luck, we'll still know the difference between crisps and chips!

Mrs OBumble

Flats are easier to spell!

In New Zealand, if I'm renting a house, standalone or not, then I'm more likely to call it my "flat" than my "house", cos calling it a house implies ownership. Dunno if the same distinction applies here.

Alias G

Supercell wrote: »

There is none, though its come to mean flat is smaller and cheaper and something you rent, an apartment is bigger and more expensive and you buy or pay more to rent.
Its all Celtic tiger nonsense. The Americans call all multi dwelling units Apartments and the British call them Flats.
During the Celtic tiger developers advertised Flats as Apartments to make them seem more glamorous I guess and it stuck (and sticks in my craw!) along with Ugg boots and 4x4 cars for the school run.

When I was renting over 20 years ago Apartments were places "Friends" lived in on TV and Flats were places we live in Ireland and UK.

The assumed differences between flats and apartments have been around a lot longer than the celtic tiger. I certainly remember both in common usage 20 years ago and more.

copacetic

penana wrote: »

Isn't it just another example of the creeping Americanisation of the English language? For example, along with flats becoming "apartments," we now have "pharmacies" instead of chemists, "elevators" increasingly in place of lifts, and even on some supermarket shelves, certain types of biscuits suddenly being called, "cookies." But with any luck, we'll still know the difference between crisps and chips!

No. Americanisation would mean we would call them condos.

amtc

Conversation I have had with an English friend over many years, and we have looked into this extensively.

Three girls in our group of friends have bought apartments - these are purpose built dwellings. We resented him calling them flats.

Flats to us are a step up from bedsits.

Flats to him were the same as apartments.

ezra_pound

I thought that a flat had it's own entrance. Whereas an apartment has a common entrance and then a private inner entrance. So the corpo flats have no entrance until you're in the actual flat.

ezra_pound

Likewise granny flats etc. All have direct entrance, no private restricted common area.

Duckjob

3DataModem wrote: »

Many Americans refer to them as condominiums. Weird.

AFAIK, they refer it as a condominium (or condo) when the occupier owns it, and an apartment if they're renting it.

Boom__Boom

For me the distinction would have been that a flat was something built by the Council/Corporation and that everything else was an apartment, based on the fact that I never heard of a non-corpo or non-council flat.

Basically in terms of design/size/features etc there would be no actual difference between a flat and an apartment but that a flat was a type of apartment provided by the Council or the Corporation.

To me it it looks like there is no actual legal difference in Ireland between flat and apartment.

Given the wide range of answers so far, it seems that its one of those things that is open to individual interpretation and that there is no one correct answer.

knipex

Duckjob wrote: »

AFAIK, they refer it as a condominium (or condo) when the occupier owns it, and an apartment if they're renting it.

to my knowledge a condo complex will have a number of shated amenities such as a pool, gym, larger gardens etc. Plus a seperate entrance to each unit (no shared hallways).

An apartment complex tends not to have these extra amenities and may have shared hallways...

Flats to me were allways older, primarily converted houses or poor quality 60's style attempts at high density housing. The use of the word apartment was introduced to seperate modern units from the stigma many associated with "flats"..

Santa Cruz

marketty wrote: »

Flats on the Northside = Apartments on the Southside...

Apartments generally come with a management company who charge you a flat fee each year for services such as clamping you in your own parking space and telling you to take your washing in off the balcony

I haven't heard Priory Hall called Priory Hall Flats and its well Northside.
And you sound that you would be more suited to a Flat.
I would prefer not to live in an apartment complex where people hang out their washing on the balcony. That's why I understand the concept of proper apartment management.

marketty

Santa Cruz wrote: »

And you sound that you would be more suited to a Flat.

Em, thanks ??
I'm more of a house man myself tbh.

Maybe the humorous intent of my post has been lost in the past few months