Legally Speaking Federal Budget 2022: Taxation of Property Flipping, GST and Assignment Sales #548 

The proposed federal budget for 2022 has introduced a number of new rules relating to real estate, including rules to dampen speculation in the market. REALTORS® should be aware of these changes.

Legally Speaking Licensees Liable for Not Determining Seller’s Non-resident Status? #493

On March 25, 2017, several local newspapers ran a story with the alarming headline, “House buyer beware: Landmark court ruling…

Legally Speaking Home Office or Work Space Expense Deductions #414

Section 18(12) of the Income Tax Act permits a self-employed individual to deduct expenses associated in using part of the home as a place of business…

Legally Speaking Independent Contractor or Employee – The Tests For #228

When the Homelife/Victoria case was decided in 1992, the conduct required to establish independent contractor status was not common knowledge among the licensees who claimed this status at the hearing…

Legally Speaking Independent Contractor Status v. Employee Status #227

As most licensees must be aware, while the Supreme Court of British Columbia has held in three cases that under the Real Estate Act a salesperson can only be an employee of an agent…

Legally Speaking Satisfactory Financing #214

Subject to “satisfactory financing”, while not a whim and fancy clause, has been analyzed in several earlier cases and again in a recent decision involving the cash purchase of a business…

Legally Speaking Income Tax – The Cost of Buy-Downs as a Moving Expense; Faxed Communications – The Validity Of #156

The reasons for judgment of a recently reported case, which have not yet made their way to the Victoria courthouse library is of particular interest in these days of high interest rates and buy-downs…

Legally Speaking Tax Deductibility of a Real Estate Training Course #133

A real estate salesperson in Ontario paid $525 in 1985 to attend a four-day course “List More – Sell More,” which she found to be useful in increasing her commission income…

Legally Speaking Principal Residence – Exemption or Taxable Gain #131

Where the lands surrounding a principal residence exceed one acre, the excess area only falls within the principal residence exemption if the owner…

Legally Speaking Professional Incorporations – Continued #123

The response to the previous column discussing the lower rate of tax paid by a corporation carrying on an active real estate business confirmed that while everyone…

Legally Speaking Principal Residence Exemptions #42

In the first case, the question was whether or not the sale of 9.3 acres made by the taxpayers under threat of expropriation by a municipality, leaving 7/10ths of an acre upon which the taxpayers’ house was situated…

Legally Speaking Income Tax, Income or Capital Gain #31

The intention of the taxpayer as the determinative factor in whether one hundred per cent of the profit realized on the sale of property is taxed as income, or only fifty per cent as capital gain, is described in the…

Legally Speaking Income Tax #25

One of the results of the reduction in residential sales has been an increase in the number of trades of residential properties between people who can’t find a satisfactory cash buyer. For any one entitled to deduct…