Two units can share a wall, a roofline and a parking court and still be different animals to a lender. A fee-simple townhouse is land and building, and the lender looks at your unit and your file. A condominium is an interior plus a share of everything else, and that share drags the whole association into the underwriting. The deed says which one you are buying, and the sales listing sometimes does not.
What gets reviewed on a condo that does not on a townhouse
The project, not only the unit. FHA lends on a condominium where the project appears on HUD’s approved list, or where the individual loan gets a single-unit approval. Conventional lenders run their own project review. Either way somebody reads the association’s budget, its reserves, its master insurance policy, whether it is in litigation, and how much of the building is rented out instead of owner-occupied.
None of that is your paperwork, and all of it can hold up your loan. It is worth asking the listing agent for the association documents early, because a condo file includes a budget you did not write about a building you do not own yet.
A fee-simple townhouse mostly skips it. There may still be a homeowners association with dues and rules, but the lender is not underwriting the association’s balance sheet the same way.
The fee is part of the monthly number
Whatever the association charges monthly goes into the housing figure the lender uses, next to taxes and insurance. So does a special assessment, if one is running. No dollar figures for any of that appear on this site; the lender works them out against the actual documents, and whether a loan is approved is its decision alone. The monthly cost page is the place to see how the pieces stack up.
The county treats both identically
A condominium unit is its own parcel with its own assessment, sitting on Montgomery County’s 1996 base year like every other parcel in the county. The Common Level Ratio factor for documents dated 1 July 2026 through 30 June 2027 is 3.36, so assessed value runs to roughly market value divided by 3.36.
Realty transfer tax is 2.000% on a condominium and 2.000% on a house, at every address in the county. Custom is half each between buyer and seller, both sides are jointly and severally liable for the whole amount, and the agreement of sale decides who actually pays.
The homestead exclusion applies to whichever one is your primary residence, and it goes through the county assessment office, not the school district. Act 1 school relief closes 1 March, Act 50 local relief closes 15 December, and the county’s own advice is to mail by 15 December to cover both. Close after 1 March and the school portion waits a year. What it is worth depends on the district: 2025-26 relief ran from $149 per homestead in Upper Merion Area to $777 in Pottstown.
New construction and the 40-day clock
When a new unit is finished, the county issues a change-of-assessment notice, and an interim appeal has to be filed within 40 days of the date on that notice. That window is easy to lose in the pile of paper that arrives after a settlement.
Annual appeals are the other route, due 1 August each year — the next one is 1 August 2027, for tax year 2028. The fee is $50 for a single-family residential appeal and $100 for residential multi-family, by check or money order to the Montgomery County Treasurer, with three copies of supporting documentation and any supplements in at least ten days before the hearing. Faxed appeals are not accepted, and the Board has warned that postal delays can make a timely-mailed filing arrive looking late, so it asks for hand delivery, hand cancellation or certified mail to Norristown.
Where the millage lands on the same building
Three municipalities in Colonial School District show how little the district does to distinguish them and how much the municipal levy does. Colonial charges 27.4220 school mills across all of them for 2026-27. Conshohocken’s municipal levy is 4.5 mills, Plymouth Township’s is 3.8 and Whitemarsh’s is 2.3633, which lands their totals at 37.87, 37.174 and 35.7373 with the county’s 5.952 on top.
Cross into Upper Merion and the total drops to about 36.60 on a 25.03-mill school levy, King of Prussia’s commercial base carrying a share of it. Go the other way into Cheltenham Township and the total is 73.483. Same county, same 1996 base year, and roughly double the rate.
What to do next
Find out from the deed whether it is fee simple or condominium before anything else, because that single word decides which review the loan goes through. Call the line, or put the address in the form and send it along, and a licensed Pennsylvania mortgage lender calls you back knowing which set of rules is in play. Bring the association’s documents if you already have them; they are the slowest part to chase.