What's the difference between a flat and an apartment?

[WildRosie]

According to various estate agents, I live in an apartment but that's not what I call it. I call it a flat. To me, apartment suggests at least two bedrooms, generous size, possibly split level and some sort of terrace or balcony. Perhaps basement garages and a concierge service in swanky blocks. My home is on the small side, one bedroom, one floor and only communal outdoor space. Admittedly, the kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom are all separate. Again, none of the rooms are big.

I wonder if apartment has become estate agent speak for flat, because it helps to sell them ? Perhaps it's one of those American words that's becoming adopted in the UK.

it's an international term. that's it really.

Apartment is American for flat.

Upscale flats are often described as apartments in marketing materials, but I just call them all flats.

The difference can probably be measured in money.
Otherwise, no difference at all.

As PP said apartment is American and British usually carry them flats. They're all the same thing but some marketing material may use apartments no idea why it doesn't fool us.

As above. They are interchangeable in this country. Lots of other countries however do not use the term ‘flat’, so apartment has become more ubiquitous just because it is generally better understood.

My flat certainly isn't upscale or even upmarket! It's in an affordable but increasingly pricey and up-and-coming area. It's still a flat to me though. Estate agents can call it an apartment if they wish. I might be selling later this year so I shall see what it is then.

I agree that apartment is internationally recognised but I say it's a little pretentious for what I have. Mustn't complain though - it is my home (for now) with less than five years mortgage payments .

Apartment is just a more internationally used name.v

Europe.

I don’t mind calling mine a flat or an apartment. It has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a balcony so by your definition maybe more an apartment? I’m sure estate agents will call it one!

No difference. A maisonette, however, has its own external front door.

A flat is part of a property that, at one point, was a single dwelling.

An apartment is in an apartment block. It was built as apartments and was never one house.

In America, an apartment building is usually owned by one landlord.

If you own the unit (usually in a block with other owner-occupiers), then it’s called a condominium.

It's not pretentious if it means exactly the same though. It just presumably means that estate agents are preferring to use a more internationally recognisable term - after all, they must deal with plenty of overseas customers.

I always thought apartment was an international term, may be wrong though.

Like on Friends when that woman who moved to London comes back and keeps calling her apartment her 'flat' and it annoys Monica and Rachel

Where I live is a purpose-built block of five one-bedroom flapartments. There are two-bedroom 'flaps' in the same development. Our property management company refers to them all as apartments. To me they're flats. Anyways, just semantics and opinion when all said and done.

Frasier lived in an apartment for sure. Don't know how he got the grand piano in there. Cliff Barnes off Dallas lived in a condominium. Confusing stuff.

Nothing. No difference at all.

@Mamette that sounds like it might be accurate for the US but not the UK. I was born in what you call an apartment block only it was known as a block of flats, and was built by the council as flats, known as council flats. My daughter lives in a very similar flat now and owns it. Ex-council; now private. All flats. Never known as apartments or condominiums.

My American aunt, when she saw my flat, said ‘ooh, this is lovely, it’s an apartment not a flat’ as if that was some sort of compliment. My flat is 5 bedroom over two floors with huge Georgian ceilings, but I’d never call it anything other than a flat. I wouldn’t use the word apartment - I think it’s an American term, and to them something would only be called a flat if it was really basic and downmarket. She was also horrified at me saying I lived in a tenement, which again sounds very downmarket to an American - but in Georgian Edinburgh tenement flats can go for more than a million!

According to Wikipedia they're much the same. The words just derive from different languages.

Etymology 2 Edit

From 1795, alteration of Scots flet (“inner part of a house”), from Middle English flet (“dwelling”), from Old English flet, flett (“ground floor, dwelling”), from Proto-Germanic flatją (“floor”), from Proto-Germanic flataz (“flat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“flat”). Akin to Old Frisian flet, flette (“dwelling, house”).

APARTMENT

1640s, "private rooms for the use of one person or family within a house," from French appartement (16c.), from Italian appartimento, literally "a separated place," from appartere "to separate," from a "to" (see ad-) + parte "side, place," from Latin partem (nominative pars) "a part, piece, a division" (from PIE root *pere- (2) "to grant, allot").

@WildRosie
I love that description “flapartment” and flap, I’m going to call my flat these now, Thankyou I needed that laugh, going to work this afternoon and dreading it so needed a 😂

@cremuel living a few miles outside Edinburgh city I am enviously picturing your Flat in my mind.
Edinburgh has some amazing properties

I think it sounds like your property management company is using the term to market to a wider audience of potential tenants - hoping to pick up on search hits from people from America or Asia searching for UK housing.

I own a flat that I rent out on Airbnb. When we talk about it at home we refer to it as the flat, 'I've got to go to the flat' 'shall I get such and such for the flat' etc

But on Airbnb and in general speech to others it's an 'apartment' 😂😂

About £100k.

Am clearly as old as you OP. We all used to live in flats or houses, these days it’s property

I read somewhere once that a flat is just a load of flats in a block, but an apartment is that but with communal facilities such as a pool, gym, laundry house etc.

I just think apartment is American and the English etc now use to describe more upmarket flats as saying a flat can produce imagery of a tower block

A flat is a home on one level, often associated with council (sorry), nothing wrong with that.

An apartment is usually private. That's my understanding, but it's the usual class thing in UK to distinguish the plebs from their betters. LOL!