We live in a unit and we pay body corp and council rates. It would really depend on whether you have a body corp or not, as some townhouses dont have it.

Usually, BodyCorp insures the Building and I think for us they also insure the fixtures and fittings, but we are responsible for insuring our contents. When we were having all the conveyancing done, we got the strata/body corp report and it showed us information about the levies, what was in the sinking fund at the time and a few other things. We pay $450/quarter for body corp and $180/quarter for council rates. There are some units in my building that have larger garages/balconies or the unit is just bigger and those people pay a higher body corp levy. For a house, you'd have to pay more in council rates than you would for a villa//townhouse.