Real Estate Law Blog

The City of Vancouver imposes an annual Empty Homes Tax (“EHT”) on vacant Vancouver houses and residential lands to encourage owners to tenant the houses and encourage construction of new housing on empty lots. The Province imposes its own Speculation and Vacancy Tax (“SVT”) and the Federal Government imposes a similar Underused Housing Tax.

In April 2023, the ...

Underused Housing Tax Filing Obligations

The filing deadline for the first year of the Federal Underused Housing Tax (“UHT”)^[1] is fast approaching. Any owner of residential property in Canada who is not explicitly defined as an “excluded owner” must file a return by April 30, 2023 for each residential property of the owner. The UHT is a 1% tax on the value of vacant or ...

Canada has recently introduced legislation to implement an Underused Housing Tax (UHT).^[1] (You can read our blog on this legislation here) The UHT will apply to non-resident, non-Canadian owners of residential property. As others have pointed out, the UHT contains some unusual policy choices.^[2] For example, if the goal of the UHT is to increase housing supply, it should ...

Over the last few months, the Underused Housing Tax Act (the “Act”) has moved through the House of Commons and is currently in the final steps of the report stage. If the Act is ultimately brought into force, it will implement an annual tax of 1% on the vacant or underused residential real estate, directly or indirectly owned by non-Canadians.

Whom does the Underused ...