Who owns the property used by an Ontario general partnership?

Because a general partnership isn't a separate legal entity, it can't technically own property in its own name the way a corporation can. Instead, under Ontario's Partnerships Act, property used for the partnership's business is generally treated as partnership property, held by the partners together and used for the purposes of the partnership's business, rather than as personal property any one partner can deal with individually.

In practice, this means a partner's interest in partnership property is a right to their share of the value of that property (and the partnership's overall assets) after the partnership's debts and other partners' interests are accounted for, not a direct ownership right to any specific item of partnership property. A partner generally can't unilaterally sell or use a specific piece of partnership property as though it were solely theirs. Whether a particular asset counts as partnership property or one partner's personal property brought into the business can be a real source of dispute, especially where there's no written partnership agreement clarifying it — which is one of many good reasons to document contributions and ownership clearly from the start.