When is a flat not a flat?

Well, my new downstaris toilet isn't going to be classed as a downstairs toilet, but as The Royal Box as it will contain The Throne! Very Hyacinth!

There are a lot of converted old offices blocks close to where my son lived. They are all now apartments and the starting price is £230,000 for a 2 bed.

I just think of apartment as an Americanism. We only had 'flats' until fairly recently, so the 'apartment' I see as a marketing ploy. 'I have my own apartment' sounds swish. I noticed a new block of flats near here were sold as apartments. I wonder if builders can get more by calling them that? (They were tiny one-bedroomed things, flats of old, costing an arm and a leg.)

My friend lived in a maisonette years ago, it was on 2 floors, but there was another above it, also on 2 floors. From outside they looked like a block of flats.

PS - if it was some enterprising builder I suppose he thought 'maisonette' sounded swankier than 'half a house'. Much like the flat/apartment business now. And they are different from normal flats, in having their own street doors and often their own garden.

They're nearly always 'apartments' round here - I think the builders/estate agents thunk it sounds swankier. I heard of someone who was very offended when someone asked about her flat - 'It's not a flat - it's an apartment!'

Maisonettes - there are a lot of purpose built (mostly Edwardian) maisonettes around here. They are distinguished from flats by the fact that they have their own front door to the street. Most also have their own small garden, with steps down if they're the first floor one. From the outside they look like a period house, until you notice the 2 adjacent front doors.

I have sometimes wondered who thought up the term 'maisonette'. Was it some builder who first thought of dividing a house in two, and translating 'little house' into French? Or did he just nick the word from across the Channel?

So what is a maisonette? We had one decades ago, a nice 3 bed house built on top of a parade of shops. DD was born in it. Good memories.

I thought a duplex flat was a maisonette lol.

Re janeainswoth's post - I grew up in a quasi-semi (really a terrace of four houses) in East Manchester and we thought we were very posh. It certainly wasn't a Victorian artisan's cottage. It was built between the wars and had a front and back garden, AND an indoor bathroom and loo, unlike the Victorian terraces which surrounded us.

to her "flat" is an insult and means your home is a hovel!

<looks round>

<surveys devastation caused by many an autistic meltdown>



definitely a flat then.

a duplex flat though, don't you know! (two story flat, so not... erm... flat then though it should be flattened )

Oooooooh- Hyacinth value indeed. I'm in a conservation area which is part of the cultural quarter!!!

I think the term Park Home is much better because most are not really "mobile"
What annoys me is that developers advertise houses as "homes". I think a house is not a home until it is lived in. "
"Apartment" is another example of how Americanisms have crept into our English language.

Don't forget the extra Hyacinth value of living in a Conservation Area like what I do

When my parents moved up to Scotland with two children, they exchanged a 3-bedroom council house in Pompey for a 2-bedroom council "house" in Kirkcaldy, which turned out to be a flat with a tiny room off the livingroom as the second bedroom. The other party to the exchange definitely came off best in that swap.

Philip17 "a Dower House" was where they widowed Lady of the Manor lived when her son & wife became Lord & Lady of the Manor.

I live in a Mobile Home (Park Home) - people will persist in calling them caravans!!! They are permanent dwellings, single storey could be described as a bungalow - new ones look like a bungalow but even older ones look nice

Is it in a Quarter, or even better a vibrant Quarter?

My flat has a main front door but also a 'back door' to the communal area leading to the shared garden space.
I' ve always thought a maisonette was a 2-storey flat within a block of similar properties so I'd never describe my home as a maisonette.
I dislike the current trend, whether conversions or newly built, to have living-room, dining area and kitchen all openplan.

I've always thought of a "flat" as a property on one level where the flat is not the only unit of accommodation in the property as a whole.

I don't like American words like "apartment" creeping in to the English language but this is what can be expected from estate agents. I saw a house re-marketed online yesterday. I had already viewed and rejected it because all the rooms were small (eg double bed had to be placed in front of window to fit inside the main bedroom). The agents described the house as having "impressive proportions". Total tosh!

Philp17 - I think a "Dower House" is a small house on an estate where the titled owner has died and his surviving widow moves there when her son succeeed to the family title.

How about "The Dower House" . Not entirely sure what one is but sounds classy!

I meant "dwelling" not "welling"

In Scotland apartments often refers to rooms in a flat, house or bungalow - eg if you have two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom, it might be described by estate agents as "a three apartment" or "four apartment" depending on whether they decided to count the kitchen. A bathroom would never be included as one of the apartments.

Quite a lot of people in Glasgow who live in tenement flats refer to their home as "my house".

I never really noticed this until I went down to England where a house usually means a home with two storeys, and no other welling above or below.

I live in a triangular-shaped building with an inner garden. Two sides of the building are made up of four floors of flats while the third side is terraced bungalows, yet they are also referred to as flats. Each property on the ground floor has their own front door. Some delivery drivers get very confused but the good ol' postie always seems to get it right!

I guess this difficulty of knowing whether to call it an apartment or a flat is all part of our new 'aspirational' culture.

It all sounds a bit "Abigail's Party" to me, but I wonder what an English estate agent/lawyer would make of the Scottish equivalent of an "Upper Flatted Villa" or "Lower Flatted Villa"?!

angsw well, that explains it our first home was a flat and I had an Irish friend who, if I invited her round to the "flat" would say "OMG don't be silly, you don't live in a flat, your appartment is nice" It amused me, to her "flat" is an insult and means your home is a hovel!

In Ireland some time back I noticed that flat owners only owned 'apartments'. It's definitely a snobby status thing. A 'flat' was something people rented, probably flea ridden, etc!! It used really cheese me off when someone said 'apartment' in a special voice/accent.

To be kind, it was a time when home ownership was low and times were tough.

Not everyone thought like that. One friend there loved how Prince Charles referred to his 'flat'!