Who is responsible for insurance and other costs in two-story duplexes? (Example photo in OP)

Factual Questions
1

Saint Louis, MO, and I assume multiple other US cities as well, has a lot of houses like this.

Is it custom for the owner to occupy one floor and for him or her to rent out the other? Or can each floor be separately owned? If the latter, do the two homeowners pay fees to a mini-HOA of a sort, to cover insurance, taxes, and whatnot? Like if the western wall of that structure (assume for this thought experiment that the camera is pointed north) were to develop a meters-high crack from the ground up, both homeowners are in a pickle. Surely one or both of them has to have an insurace policy that covers this type of thing?

2

They’re common in Cleveland, too. The typical case is that they’re rented, either the owner on one floor and a tenant on the other, or an owner somewhere else with both floors rented. I’ve never heard of one where one resident owned one floor and another owned the other, presumably because of the sort of complications you mention.

3

I can’t imagine that would even be possible without some type of pseudo-condo setup, but even then the property, and house itself, would still be owned by a single person/entity.

A duplex, even though they’re divided into separate living spaces, is still a single structure. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of other single buildings that have different people owning different parts of it.

4

My mother own half of a duplex that is built side by side with a common wall.

Each side pays for our own repairs and we split things that are common problems, which there have been many over the past 60 years.

There’s only one water meter so we alternate payments by year. Don’t remember how the insurance is handled but there is as agreement as well.

The driveway is on the other side so we have a right of way to get access to the back yard.

A two-story duplex is going to be more complicated because of the land. Quick googling suggests it’s possible but there has to be some legal steps.

(My parents bought our place as a place for my grandmother to live.

My sibling lives there now, I lived there before.)

5

Property next door to our vacation house is a three unit condominium, where one unit is the first floor of the main house and another is the second floor. The third unit is the cottage in the back. So at least one example where a two story duplex has separate owners for each floor in a condomimium,arrangement.

6

We call these flats in San Francisco. Two or three units, one one each story. When I moved here in 1980 they were almost exclusively rentals, some owner-occupied, many owned by larger property owners. In any case, when they are rentals, the owner is responsible for insurance on the building (not contents, or at least not necessarily) and general maintenance of the property.

Starting in the 90s I think, converting rental flats into condos came into fashion, so much so that city ordinances were passed to control this, as the trend was deemed to be seriously reducing the rental stock, and thereby pushing out low-income families (even more than before). SF has rent control on older buildings, which kept rental income low and that was also an inventive for the owners to sell off their older units and take a one-time very large profit. In any case, when converted to condos, as you suggest they would form an HOA that would collect fees and be responsible for insurance and upkeep.

7

Home like that were common in NYC when I was growing up there in the 40s through early 60s. Usually the owner lived up stairs and the lower was rented.

8

Toronto has “stacked townhouses” (usually built in blocks rather than as single buildings) that work under a condominium-style agreement.

9

I can’t see the image in the OP’s link.

10

Isn’t that basically all apartment buildings? Am I missing something?

11

You rent an apartment, you don’t own it. You make rent payments to your landlord (ie property owner), not mortgage payments to a lien holder. If you want to move out, you stop making payments and move out, you don’t sell your apartment.
A condo is essentially an apartment that you own. But I’m not sure if that applies to what the OP is looking for. My understanding of how owning a condo works is a bit different than how owning an entire building and the property it’s on (ie owning a house) works.

ETA, I feel like the closest the thing the OP is going to find is both people being listed as the owners of the duplex on any legal documents (mortgage, insurance etc). To over simplify, how they split up who’s responsible for what, is up to them, but legally, they’d both be responsible for everything. By that I mean, if, for example, one person stops paying their share of the mortgage, they bank will still repo the entire thing and kick them both out.

TokyoBaker mentioned something like what the OP asked about but I’m not sure if that’s common in the US.

12

Ok, so a condo is an apartment that you own rather than rent? Got it. We don’t have the distinction here in the UK, where a multi-owned building is either leasehold - meaning you own the apartment but not the land it’s built on - or you own a share of the freehold of the building, and pay a share of any maintenance or insurance on the building as a whole, as stipulated in your legal paperwork.

13

My grandparents owned a duplex (really a triplex with a small third floor apartment) along with my great aunt and uncle. Each couple was 50% owner of the property and they each occupied a floor.

This ownership was from 1945, which predated any condo legislation here, through their estates owning the property until it was sold in 1999.

14

So they both owned 50% of the entire building (and land under it) but had exclusive right to use only one section each?

Was the exclusive use and responsibility for maintenance written into a contract?

15

To be honest, I don’t know. Given that it was family, I suspect there was no written agreement. The two units they lived in were identical in area so they just split the utilities, property tax, and maintenance expenses.

16

That sounds like a less-formal version of what we’d call a “condo” here. In Ontario, Canada, there is actually a law governing Condo Corporations, which stipulates a lot of what must be done in such situations. You have to have a board, and corporation officers, who have legal obligations to maintain the common property of the condo, and other such issues.

17

We have virtually no residential buildings in the US that are on leased land, it is virtually always owned by the owner(s) of the building on it. The owning a share thing sounds a lot like Co-op ownership which is only a thing in a few places in the US, most notably in New York city.

As a child I lived in a "twin” house which was half of a duplex - each side was owned individually and we were responsible for everything up to the center of the shared wall. No condo/HOA association, I assume if the other owner didn’t want to fix their side and it damaged yours you were in lawsuit territory.

More typical in the US you either have the whole building owned by one party (and they just rent some or all of it), or the building itself is owned by the “condo association” and each resident owns only their own unit. Insurance for the property as a whole, common areas, exterior maintenance, roofing replacement, etc are handled by the condo association in that case and are funded by mandatory dues. If you don’t pay your dues they eventually foreclose and sell the condo you own.

18

They’re common here in Schenectady. One family owns the building and rents out one floor. You you used to set the rent to cover all or part of the mortgage and insurance costs.

Utilities have separate meters for each apartment.

The owners are responsible for repairs and insurance (which is covered by the rent)

19

That’s my understanding too. The government sets the rules on how condo’s operate. For example, according to the news Florida cracked down on condo corporations after the recent tower collapse, requiring them to have maintenance plans and budgets and regular inspections - all paid for from the condo fees. The condo corporation must(?) have bylaws that allow for proper participation by all owners. In the event of a special problem, they may make an additional levy on every owner to cover the expense. (Which sounds like the OP’s question). The coroporation is in charge of the common areas - corridors, lobby, parking lots, grounds. (Except some townhouse development are condo, so the individual units may own a small private backyard) I imagine another requirement is that the condo corporation hold overall insurance on the structure.

What I don’t see is - a small dwelling with two units probably is not big enough for creating a condo organization. (Much as for small some businesses, it’s too complicated to incorporate). I assume with a condo designation comes a whole lot more complexity, such as maintaining fire alarms and any fire suppression systems, etc.

Most likely, a house with an upstairs or basement apartment (or both) is likely a rental, with the owner possibly living in one unit or not. At one time, IIRC there was a special exception here to landlord regulations if the owner lived in the (smaller) building, i.e. easier to evict noisy or obnoxious tenants.

Regardless, the owner of a building is the one responsible for insurance and maintenance on the overall structure. If the damage extends through multiple units, and is a hazard or makes the structure unliveable, then it is up to the overall owner to fix it. Because of logistics like this, it becomes impossible to separate the condo corporation or do away with it. Something has to exist that is responsible for the whole structure, land, etc. The condo or owner has insurance on the structure, and each tenant is responsible for insurance against

I’m imagining two people could draw up a contract to share in an arrangement to be like the OP suggests; but this invites all sorts of issues. What if the total entity encounters a problem like the OP suggests? Does to contract spell out who initiates the repair, or must both agree? What if they don’t? Who owns the roof, if it leaks? The downstairs person doesn’t want to pay yet, it’s not bothering him (yet). To what extent can one veto the other, when it comes to resale, or leasing out? It seems to me (depending on contract wording?) if one owner sells his half, Does the new owner have to sign the same contract or else the original owner remains liable…? If one owner does not pay proeprty taxes, does the other have to pay or else the entire building is foreclosed by the city? The city doesn’t care what private arrangements two co-owners have made. Property is by lot, not level.

All in all - either a separate condo corporation, or landlord tenant is the only arrangement.

20

This sort of arrangement is pretty common in Scotland. Unlike in England and Wales, leasehold isn’t really a thing, each apartment/flat/maisonette (maisonette- two storey flat, often come as only two in a building) will own a share of the freehold. Each will pay for their own insurance as they are all legally individual properties, and each will be responsible for a share of the essential repairs and costs of the communal areas, this will be set out in the deeds.

In practice, this can be fine or a pain in the neck. Depends who the other owners are.

In a situation like a leaky roof which could damage the whole building, all owners can be compelled to pay a share for repairs even if they refuse, but this involves legal action and can take a long time.

It can be even more of an issue for less clear-cut repairs. I actually looked at buying a flat where the front door was basically broken; it wouldn’t close at all, just swung open into the street. The building contained 6 units, 5 of the owners wanted to replace the door with a new security door, the 6th insisted it was fine and was refusing to pay, claiming it couldn’t be essential to replace it with a more expensive door, as they had never had a security door previously and no-one had been burgled yet. From the sound of it, this argument had been going on for years with no progress and everyone was just hoping the argumentative old coot moved into a care home soon.

There can also be situations where a flat is left empty and the owner can’t be identified or contacted. There are organsiations who can help in this situation, but it can be very difficult.

It’s also common, especially in buildings where some flats are rented out, for the communal areas to be awful in appearance; chipped paint on walls, dodgy lights, bare, stained concrete floor and even litter, even when individual flats are well-maintained. If one owner refuses a purely cosmetic update, it’s not possible for the others to force that through if there isn’t a formal agreement to do so.

A common solution what is known as a factoring company, who will arrange maintenance and repairs to an agreed standard, mediate costs between the owners, and may manage a repair fund, paid into by the owners per agreement. Lots of lawyers offer it as a service. Use of a factoring agency may be a requirement, which is stated in the deeds, or may be arranged by agreement of all existing owners in the building- which can then ensure new owners also have to sign up. While there’s no requirement to use one if not stated in the deeds or otherwise agreed- owners can work it all out themselves if they choose, and many do, because it’s cheaper- factoring agents must be registered and follow a standard of practice.