A Vancouver realtor is under fire for advising his clients on how to avoid the province’s new 15 per cent tax for foreign buyers.
In an email obtained by CTV News, real estate agent Mike Stewart suggests clients who are in presale assign the purchase contract to a friend or family member who is a citizen or resident.
Stewart adds if that isn’t an option he might be able to sell the presale to a third party – at a profit to the client.
The Real Estate Council of BC says it is investigating the incident, and has advised Stewart to cease the advertisements.
“The Province is introducing and will be enforcing stringent non-compliance penalties,” the Real Estate Council told CTV News in an email.
“Under the legislation, any individual who fails to pay the additional tax, or who participates in providing incorrect information to avoid the tax could be liable for fines of up to $100,000 and/or two years in prison.”
Premier Christy Clark addressed the incident at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Realtors should not be doing that, and they should be informing their clients that every single one of these transactions could be audited,” Clark said. “Anybody trying to find loopholes is going to discover out very quickly that those loopholes don’t stand up.”
CTV reached out to Stewart, but he has not yet returned the calls.
On Monday, the BC Liberals announced the 15 per cent property transfer tax will go in effect on Aug. 2. The tax will apply to nearly all residential real estate purchases in Metro Vancouver from foreign nationals or foreign-controlled corporations.
Only purchases on the treaty lands of the Tsawwassen First Nation will be exempt, the government said.
Though the transfer tax is meant to help, some sellers and their realtors are worried they may lose sales discussed before the tax was announced – or that foreign buyers will back out of deals because of the extra cash required
