Vancouver Wields C$10,000-a-Day Fine in Crackdown on Empty Homes

[GeeCee]

The empty homes tax issue is essentially moot when you look at the value of the property and the $10m+ owed on it. And according to this article, the city gets the first crack before the bank does: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...leak-1.4997907

[misher]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

The empty homes tax issue is essentially moot when you look at the value of the property and the $10m+ owed on it. And according to this article, the city gets the first crack before the bank does: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...leak-1.4997907

I’m not so sure of that though.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Sounds great, so long as it's not overreach. It's the Empty Homes Tax after all, not the Empty Homes Liquidation Bylaw.

Forfeiture would be for the fact he has an unpaid bill over $10 million to the city (ie. me and you) not through the EHT. It would be nice to know where Liu is now and what his citizenship status is.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

I’m not so sure of that though.

Just a gut feeling or what?

[misher]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Just a gut feeling or what?

Bank mortgages usually have #1 priority to protect them incase of defaults. I doubt the government would be willing to fight this as the legal case would cost more than the amount owed.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

The empty homes tax issue is essentially moot when you look at the value of the property and the $10m+ owed on it. And according to this article, the city gets the first crack before the bank does: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...leak-1.4997907

..<thecity>hhas slapped $4 million on the tax bill for the Beechwood property and filed a lawsuit against Liu in October for $6.5 million more.

But, it's been well over a year since there was any contact with the owner, according to Mochrie.

"We're not sure where he is," he said.

The last time the regular property tax bill was paid was 2016. It has also now been assessed for vacancy taxes of $43,000.

Paul Mochrie, Vancouver's deputy city manager, says the city spent more than $10 million capping an aquifer that was pierced during drilling for a geothermal heat exchange system. "The property could be sold for taxes as soon as next November, if the owner does not pay the arrears," said city spokesperson Jag Sandhu in a statement to CBC.

Liu remains the owner of the property, now assessed at almost $2.7 million in provincial records. Court records show that he was also being sued by CIBC for defaulting on the mortgage of more than $1.7 million and other companies for non-payment.

But the City will have first dibs on any money from the sale of the property, if it happens.

CBC News has not been able to reach Liu. His legal address for the Beechwood property is on Edgar Crescent, but the man who answered the door said his wife owned the property and he had no idea who Liu was.

A lawyer involved in one lawsuit told the CBC that he has never seen Liu or any lawyer representing him....(bold mine)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...leak-1.4997907
​

Just one of the hazards of selling property to people with apparently no history. How did CIBC come to advance him a mortgage and yet nobody can trace him? Oh wait, CIBC was notorious for this practise:

Foreign buyers just got one of the most aggressive hurdles when buying Canadian real estate. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) quietly notified its mortgage advisors the “Foreign Income Program” has ended. The program was replaced on February 1, 2018, with a new program designed to ensure compliance with B-20 guidelines from OSFI. This change will have a drastic impact on those that use foreign income to qualify for a mortgage, from one of Canada’s largest banks.

The old system at CIBC was amazingly easy for foreign buyers and international students to get a mortgage. If you had a deposit above 35%, it was good enough to get an uninsured mortgage, without your income being verified in many cases. For the bank to be at risk of a loss, the buyer would have to immediately stop paying their bills, and prices would have to decline by 35%. A highly unlikely scenario, in my opinion. This process wasn’t a secret, some branches even had signs advertising it....

https://betterdwelling.com/cibc-kill...estate-harder/

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

Bank mortgages usually have #1 priority to protect them incase of defaults. I doubt the government would be willing to fight this as the legal case would cost more than the amount owed.

And yet the article says...

Liu remains the owner of the property, now assessed at almost $2.7 million in provincial records. Court records show that he was also being sued by CIBC for defaulting on the mortgage of more than $1.7 million and other companies for non-payment.

But the City will have first dibs on any money from the sale of the property, if it happens.

[misher]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

And yet the article says...

I know the article says that but I assume lawyers won’t be using the article as evidence in court to argue it.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Don't be so sure that the city is out the entire cost. The house and all the assets of the drilling company probably will be sold off to pay the debts. Thankfully the property should be worth a fair amount.

The property should recoup most of the costs, but the company (Geoenergia Projects) apparently had packed up shop, with their employees fleeing back to Italy back in 2015. So, unless we get the company's principals charged with a crime, and request that they be extradited back to Canada, we are SOL on that front.

[misher]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

The property should recoup most of the costs, but the company (Geoenergia Projects) apparently had packed up shop, with their employees fleeing back to Italy back in 2015. So, unless we get the company's principals charged with a crime, and request that they be extradited back to Canada, we are SOL on that front.

I'm sure I'm not that only one that assumed they were Chinese. I guess that's racial bias for you.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by misher

I know the article says that but I assume lawyers won’t be using the article as evidence in court to argue it.

But why would a bank pay its lawyers to defend a client they themselves are currently suing? The most that happens is that the bank gets the property instead of the city.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

But why would a bank pay its lawyers to defend a client they themselves are currently suing? The most that happens is that the bank gets the property instead of the city.

The bank started the foreclosure process I believe so if the sale can't cover all the debts the bank will likely argue that the new empty homes tax does not have priority over the mortgage. In a foreclosure neither the city nor the bank gets the home, its sold and proceeds go first to debtors based on priority. Property taxes I believe are #1 in Canada and mortgage is #2. But the bank will argue that the vacancy tax and the debts those owners/companies owe to the city are #3 not #1.

This is a total guess with very little info.

[whatnext]

From today's Sun:

Vancouverites have been happy to drop the dime on absentee neighbours, phoning in 1,456 tips about supposedly vacant or under-used homes since the introduction of North America’s first empty homes tax.

Residents, it appears, are only growing more eager to report. City statistics provided to Postmedia show that between 2017, the first year of the tax, and 2018, the number of tips almost tripled year-over-year. So far this year, citizens’ zeal for tips hasn’t cooled off: a comparison of January 2019 and the same month in 2017 shows a 600 per cent increase in tips.

The work of Vancouver’s 12-person empty home tax audit team is reportedly paying off: While the vast majority of audits — about 95 per cent — conducted during the first year of the tax found properties to be in compliance, city numbers show that audits found 331 non-compliant properties for 2017, which generated a combined $6.2 million.

In other words, the amount of tax revenue generated through audits was enough to cover most of the $7.5 million one-time implementation costs for the program or more than double the $2.5 million operating costs for the tax’s first year...

...About half the empty homes tax payments for 2017 were between $5,000 and $15,000, Kerr said, meaning about half the homes subject to the tax were value at between $500,000 and $1.5 million. Most of the vacant and exempt properties — about 60 per cent — were condos, while single-family homes made up about 34 per cent.

The city declined to release detailed information about the amounts paid by individual owners of the 2,538 empty or under-used properties subject to the tax for 2017, but Kerr said payments ranged from $1,500 to just over $250,000 — meaning that at least one $25 million home was deemed vacant and subject to the tax, which would place it among the province’s 40 highest value houses...

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...home-tips-soar

[whatnext]

The City of Vancouver is considering a higher rate of Empty Homes Tax for foreign owners:
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...foreign-owners

[whatnext]

According to CTV one good effect of the Speculation Tax is the rush of foreign owners to rent their empty mansions, sometimes at very good prices. I wonder if the owners fully understand the tax implications?

The poster child was this godawful fugly house off Arbutus near 34th. What a monstrosity, did somebody actually pay an architect to design this POS?

[IMG]fuuugly by whatnextyvr, on Flickr[/IMG]
Image: Zoocasa

[MIPS]

I mean, with far better landscaping it would look a lot better.

I still couldn't even afford to rent the boiler room though.

[SpongeG]

Sehrish Qureshi is one of 14 students who applied online and was placed in a Vancouver mansion nicknamed “the castle,” paying around $1,000 a month for a mansion with a pool, home theatre, and games room.

When move-in day arrived, she was shocked by the furnished, $5-million home.

“Me and my family were just like, ‘What? Is this for real?’” she said.

“I’ve compared it to some of my classmates, and they pay, like, $1,300, $1,400 for small studio apartments in downtown … I’m so happy with what I’m paying.”

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/why-ar...heap-1.4329800

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by MIPS

I mean, with far better landscaping it would look a lot better.

I still couldn't even afford to rent the boiler room though.

Nothing would help that pile o' shite. I mean check out the cheap-ass windows, and the lack of any symmetry. Or the ground floor level apparently being crushed under the weight of the bad taste above. For bonus points, zoom in on the whorehouse drapery on that ground level.

[SpongeG]

its a hot mess, are the doors those cheap vinyl doors?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

its a hot mess, are the doors those cheap vinyl doors?

Probably! Why is it the UDP picks multifamily design to death, yet there is absolutely no design control over the SFH that cover so much of Vancouver?