About the Building
The Colony at Westwood is a 1972 complex of 256 homes at 1440 Veteran Avenue, and its ownership history is the most important thing about it. Today it is a for-sale condominium. The Los Angeles County Assessor records 256 active, separately assessed parcels running from 4324-038-005 through 4324-038-260, each carrying the legal description Tract 50520, Lot 1, Condominium Unit, followed by a number. All are coded 010E, the assessor's classification for a condominium created by conversion. Those parcels were created on 12 February 1993. Before that date, the same 256 homes were something else entirely.
The county's own records preserve the earlier form in unusual detail. A parallel set of parcels, 4324-037-005 through 4324-037-260, carries the legal description Tract 8235, Colony at Westwood Co-op, followed by an apartment number. Those parcels are coded 010F, the assessor's classification for a co-operative, and the roll files them under a cluster named CO-OP slash O.Y.O., the shorthand for own-your-own. Every one of them was deleted on 12 February 1993, the same day the condominium parcels were created. The county did not convert an apartment building here; it reorganised a co-operative into a condominium, in a single recorded act.
That distinction matters commercially. In a stock co-operative, a buyer purchases shares in a corporation together with a proprietary lease of a specific apartment, and the corporation holds title to the whole property. Lending against shares is harder, boards typically hold approval rights over buyers, and resale is slower. A condominium gives the owner fee title to an airspace unit and an undivided interest in the common area, which is the form American lenders are built around. Reorganising from one to the other in 1993 transformed how these homes finance and trade, and it is the reason the building now functions as ordinary entry-level Westwood ownership stock.
The underlying land tells the older story. Tract 8235 is a subdivision of a different era, and the pre-1993 parcel at 10978 Wilkins Avenue, coded 0500 for five or more residential units of four storeys or less, was deleted the same day. Tract 50520 is the condominium map that replaced it. The assessor gives 1972 as the year built for every sampled home, so the structure itself predates the reorganisation by two decades. A buyer should read the title report for anything the co-operative era left behind: recorded restrictions, occupancy conditions, or obligations carried forward into the current declaration.
Sizes on the roll are modest and varied. Sampled homes record 1,375 square feet at unit 101, 835 square feet at unit 338, 661 square feet at unit 401 and 798 square feet at unit 616. Bedroom counts run one and two, bathroom counts mostly one. A condominium directory publishes a range of 388 to 1,138 square feet, which is both lower at the bottom and lower at the top than the county's sample, so treat the published figures as indicative only. Unit numbers reaching into the 360s on the third level confirm a very wide floor plate rather than a compact tower.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
Unit 401 records 661 square feet as a one-bedroom, one-bathroom home, and it represents the building's entry product. Homes of this size on a 1972 floor plate are efficient rather than generous: a defined entry, a galley or pass-through kitchen, a living room opening to a balcony, and a bedroom off a short hall. They are the fastest-moving stock in the association and the reason the building sets the floor for Westwood condominium pricing. Check whether the balcony faces a courtyard or the street, because on a site this wide the difference in noise and privacy is substantial.
Units 338 and 616 record 835 and 798 square feet respectively, each with two bedrooms and one bathroom. That is a 1972 middle-market plan and it prices at a discount to two-bath homes of similar size, which is exactly the opportunity some buyers are looking for. Adding a second bathroom in a concrete and masonry structure means new drainage connected to a shared waste stack, association consent, and a permit. Ask whether any home in the association has done it successfully and on what terms, because the precedent will tell you how the board treats the request.
Unit 101 records 1,375 square feet, more than double the smallest sampled home, and it sits on the ground level. Homes at that size in this association are outliers rather than a repeating type, which means they have no true comparable inside the building and appraisals will reach outside it. They also tend to be the homes that came out of a co-operative era of combined or specially configured apartments. Establish from the recorded condominium plan exactly what airspace the deed conveys, and whether any part of the outdoor area attached to it is exclusive-use common area rather than owned.
The roll's situs addresses run from 101 through 616, and unit numbers reaching into the 360s on the third level show floor plates far wider than a tower's. Practically, that means long internal corridors, homes facing either outward to the street or inward to the courtyards, and a walk from the parking to the front door that varies considerably by position. Directories disagree on whether the complex is five or six storeys; the addressing supports six. Walk the actual route from the garage to the specific home you are considering before you decide what the position is worth.
On a site of nearly 97,000 square feet the single largest variable between two otherwise identical homes is which way they face. Courtyard homes look on to the pool, deck and landscaping, gain privacy and lose some afternoon light depending on the wing. Perimeter homes face Veteran or the side streets, gain light and lose quiet. Neither is universally better and both trade within the same band, which is precisely why the distinction is worth pricing yourself rather than accepting the listing's framing. Visit in the evening as well as at midday.
Homes of this era and type generally carry a private balcony or patio, and on a 1972 concrete-and-masonry building those are cantilevered or recessed slabs whose waterproofing is an association responsibility while their surfaces are often the owner's. The boundary between the two is set by the declaration, not by custom. Read it. Ask whether the association has undertaken a balcony inspection programme, what it found, and whether any repair work has been scheduled or funded, because deck and balcony assessments have become a common line item in older California associations.
Due Diligence
The active parcels are coded 010E and sit under Tract 50520, recorded as condominium units and created on 12 February 1993. The superseded parcels are coded 010F under Tract 8235, described as Colony at Westwood Co-op apartments, and deleted on the same date. Anyone telling you this has always been a condominium is missing two decades of its history, and anyone telling you it is still a co-operative is reading a stale record. Both facts sit openly on the county roll.
Financing a co-operative means lending against corporate shares and a proprietary lease, which narrows the field of willing lenders and complicates appraisal. Financing a condominium means lending against fee title to an airspace unit, which is the standard American product. The 1993 reorganisation is the reason these homes now qualify for conventional condominium financing at ordinary terms. It does not exempt the association from project-level lender review, so still confirm owner-occupancy ratios, delinquency rates and insurance adequacy.
The assessor's quality class of C85A places the structure in the masonry and concrete bearing-wall class, and the building was permitted before the 13 January 1977 cut-off for the City of Los Angeles non-ductile concrete retrofit programme. Whether it is a covered building depends on how its floors and roof are supported, which is precisely what the programme's screening checklist determines. Ask the association whether it has received an Order to Comply, whether a checklist was filed, and what the engineer concluded.
Large associations spread the cost of a roof, an elevator or a repipe across many more owners than a small one, which makes individual assessments less brutal and reserve funding more achievable. They also carry more staff, more insurance and more of everything that recurs monthly. Read the current budget alongside the reserve study and the funding percentage. In a building this size the reserve study is a real document with real consequences rather than a formality, and its assumptions about the pool, the decks and the plumbing are the ones to check.
Published sources describe a swimming pool, spa, sauna, remodelled gym, sundeck, party room and landscaped grounds, with secure parking. In an association of homes mostly under a thousand square feet, that shared programme is doing work the individual homes cannot. It is also a recurring cost. Ask what has been renovated and when, whether the gym refit was funded from reserves or by assessment, and what the association's plan is for the pool plant and the deck waterproofing over the next ten years.
Entry-priced homes near a university and a major medical campus attract investor owners, and rental listings for this address appear routinely alongside sale listings. High investor concentration can affect loan terms and, in some cases, eligibility. Ask the management company for the current owner-occupancy percentage in writing, together with any rental cap or minimum lease term in the governing documents. In a 256-home association the number moves year to year and a stale figure is worse than none.
The address sits on the western edge of Westwood, closer to the freeway and the Veterans Affairs campus than to Westwood Village. That buys shorter drives in most directions and costs some of the walkability that a Hilgard or Midvale address delivers. The Expo Line at Sepulveda and the Wilshire bus corridor are both realistic. Test your own commute at the hour you would actually make it, because on this side of Westwood the difference between ten in the morning and six in the evening is very large.
Ask for the recorded condominium plan under Tract 50520 and check the boundaries of your home, balcony and parking. Ask for the CC&Rs and any amendment adopted since 1993, the budget, the reserve study and its funding percentage, twenty-four months of minutes, the master insurance declarations including earthquake cover, and the full special assessment history. Ask specifically whether any restriction, right or obligation was carried forward from the co-operative era into the current declaration.
Everything above is drawn from public records, city permit data and published sources. The association’s statutory disclosure package is the only authoritative answer on dues, rules, reserves, insurance and litigation — Ben will request it and read it with you before you remove contingencies.
Common Questions
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Start the ConversationOff Market & Coming Soon
Residences here reach the open market rarely, and some never do. Ask Ben to tell you when one is coming, including quietly.
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