A Rush Hour Session For Realtors And Lawyers Before Imposing Of Tax

Legal representatives, real estate agencies and other officials were rushing to make sure the sale of houses in Metro Vancouver is put to an end before the finalizing of 15 percent tax on foreign buyers. The head of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Dan Morrison said that, “hundreds of British Columbians head into the B.C. Day long weekend facing stress and uncertainty concerning the largest financial transaction of their lives,” that only signifies about 13,000 Realtors. Due to the public holiday that took place over the weekend, the 1st of August was the deadline given for the real estate sales to be settled before the tax came into effect the following day.

There has been an observation by various Companies, one of them including Royal Pacific Realty; of an overflowing of trading activity as consumers and suppliers do their best to close off their sales as soon as possible. The rule which was imposed on the 2nd of August is only meant for the buying of houses in Metro Vancouver. The pact domains of the Tsawwassen First Nation are however not affected by this law. Mike de Jong who is the Provincial Finance Minister disclosed that the tax is a decrement meant for dealing with the low rate of vacant houses and southern BC high prices in the real estate market. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the standard rate for detached homes in Vancouver increased to more than $1.5 million during July.

The Royal Pacific Realty Company in Vancouver is the major self-governing real estate company in the Vancouver area.  They usually settle close to 100 deals on mostly Fridays, however, this past week has been quite different. The vice-president of the company, Sing Yeo said that there was a huge difference this time around, the figure of the deals almost doubled, if not 60 to 70 additional deals. Sing said that even some legal practitioners and notaries were choked up to their neck with heavy pile of jobs, to the extent that they had to turn down some clients. They are doing their best to have their clients know the repercussions and that if they do not obtain their papers early enough, there will be no other solution.

A Vancouver real estate agent, Jamie Stewart is pretty worried about this and said that for non-residents who have bought homes from Canadian sellers, they won’t be able to stand a chance and likely to face bankruptcy over this issue. Stewart is concerned about Canadian household who likely to have their deal settled with buyers from outside the country that are already devoted to another property. If the foreign buyers do go through and decide back out due to the tax, most families could default to their new properties. Stewart said he understands they are trying to have the market leveraged, but this way won’t help. He thought it would have been better for a period of time to be given before the decision was taken. He also added that the government’s move to have the new law imposed is not an indigenous move and that this will bring up a lot of clash of opinions from the people.