Introduction And Purpose

'Great for landlords, horrible for renters': How a runaway rental market has become Toronto's latest housing nightmare https://t.co/cPT0A0BfS5

— Penalty Taxes On Vacant, Empty Or Underused Homes (@VacantHomeTax) February 8, 2023

Many Canadian cities are experiencing the combined effects of a shortage of affordable housing and a rise in housing prices. In short housing (whether to own or to rent) has become less available and more expensive. Factors contributing to this include: Investors preferring to “rent” their investment properties on short term rental platforms rather them releasing them into the rental market, Provincial Landlord and Tenant laws which impose laws on small landlords which are perceived as unfair, increases in property values (caused by low interest rates) which have caused an imbalance between the cost of buying residential real estate and the amount it can be rented for. (It makes no sense for a person to purchase a property for one million dollars and rent it for $2000 per month.)

Canadian Cities – Clear Laws And Easy To Understand And Significant Discontent From U.S. Owners

As the Gov of Canada and major CDN cities have implemented taxes based on vacant/underused homes, I am reminded of this interesting 2017 WSJ article written by a nonresident of Canada who owned a Vancouver condo. https://t.co/yYZWUgOEyH via @WSJopinion

— John Richardson – lawyer for "U.S. persons" abroad (@ExpatriationLaw) January 21, 2023

The above tweet references a fascinating article Wall Street Journal article written in 2017 by a U.S. owner of a Vancouver, BC condominium claiming that the tax was directed at Americans. It’s a fascinating read.

A reply to the above tweet pointed out that:
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