Overseas Purchasers of Property in Canadian Metro Vancouver to Pay More

Are you a foreign national in Canada, and keen to buy a property in the Metro Vancouver? If yes, here’s not a too positive news report for you! Now you may have to part with more money to fulfill your dream of acquiring a property in this highly loved and preferred region.
 
According to a new update, as of August 2, this year, the overseas buyers of housing property in the Vancouver region will have no options except to shell-out an additional 15% tax. The latest tax--which was reportedly revealed recently by the Administration of British Columbia (BC)--is component of the provincial plan to slow the foreign conjecture that several hold responsible for making the area’s houses the most expensive in the country.

During the month gone by, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reportedly declared that its benchmark cost for the separate properties in Vancouver had headed north above 1.5 million dollars. The laws only apply to the home purchasers in Metro Vancouver, and this does not comprise the treaty lands of the Tsawwassen First Nation.

The extra tax on the buying of a home on sale for 2 million dollars to an overseas national will amount to an additional 300,000 dollars in taxation. At present, every BC resident gives a 1% tax on the initial 200,000 dollars of their purchase, 2% on the rest worth up to 2 million dollars, and 3% on any segment on and above that.

As per the BC administration, the proceeds from the added tax would be employed to support accommodation, rental and support schemes, even as the latest laws plan to make lodging more reasonably priced for those who are middle-class purchasers.

While the Vancouver Mayor has reportedly hailed the improvements, stating that he had been urging for several years now for the province to take courageous action to manage housing affordability, and the effect of the global capital on the market there; the opposition party in the BC legislature has reportedly expressed its displeasure and severely condemned the tax, putting forward that the same unjustly isolates the overseas persons instead of overseas funds.

However, the government's diagram plainly states that the description of a foreign national is somebody who is neither a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident. As a result, fresh permanent residents, staying in the Metro Vancouver Area, will not witness the tax applied to their buying of a house.

Whilst the Metro Vancouver Area comprises Delta, Coquitlam, Belcarra, Bowen Island, Burnaby, and Anmore among others, the added tax is applicable to every applicable transfer, duly registered with the Land Title Office on or post August 2, 2016, not considering the fact when the agreement of purchase and sale was eventually signed.