REAL ESTATE LAW
Closing Date and Title Transfer
After subjects are removed, both parties are confident that the transaction will “close”. After the subjects are removed is when the realtor puts up the sold sign and you take a family photo.
Your Closing Date is the day when the house is paid for and the title transfers to your name. It is also usually the eve of moving day. Since lawyers have until the end of the day on Closing Day to complete the sale, we usually recommend that you plan to take possession the day after.
Some costs you may not be aware of if you are a first-time home buyer:
Property Transfer Tax- while first time home buyers may be exempt from this tax, that is not always the case. Among others, you must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, have lived in BC for not less than 12 consecutive months prior to purchasing, affirm that you have never owned an interest in a principal residence anywhere in the world at any time, and have never before claimed the first time home buyer’s exemption.
PTT as it is known, is charged on all purchases at a rate of 1% on the first $200,000, and 2% up to and including $2,000,000 and 3% on the portion greater than $2,000,000.
Example: If you purchase a house for $425,000, then you will pay $6,500.00 in PTT.
This is a significant amount of money if you were not expecting to have to pay.
Check this link for more information on the PTT exemptions
GST – paid by the first people to live in a newly built (or substantially renovated) house. new construction also has an exemption. There are limits on the price though.
While GST is charged at a rate of 5% and payable by the purchasers, there may be some rebates available to you.
Rebates up to 36% of the GST paid may be claimed if the Purchasers are going to live in the house and claim it as their principal residence but only if your house was purchased for less than $350,000.00. Any home over $350,000 can claim a pro-rated rebate until the price of $450,000 at which point none of the GST rebate is available to you.
REAL ESTATE LAW
On-reserve purchases (Sun Rivers, Talasa, Sienna Ridge )
If you are buying at Sun Rivers, there are some complexities to be alive to.
You are not purchasing in the provincial Land Title Office system. You are purchasing, and your purchase is being registered with the federal government department of Indigenous Affairs because you are purchasing a lease-hold interest.
Your property is not located in the City of Kamloops and so you will pay your property tax to the Tk’emlups te Secwepmc. As an aside, you can also not vote in the municipal election, nor the Band’s election.
It takes time to register a lease-hold interest with the federal government, so most lenders require something called Gap Insurance. This insurance covers you in for any reason after the Closing Date and before the property is registered something goes wrong, then you have not lost your money.
We also usually have to make more copies, and more personal trips to the Band’s Land, Leasing and Taxation Office, which all costs a bit more.
*You will be required to sign legal documents, so please advise us if you are going to be away prior to the Closing Date.
