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  #21  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 3:58 PM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Originally Posted by Boris2k7 View Post
No, there is no land transfer tax in Alberta. There are fees for land title transfer and registering mortgage on title however.

Land title transfer = $50 + (Purchase Price / $5000)
How is this land transfer fee anything but a land transfer tax...?

Notary's fees are one thing, but that's an inescapable transfer fee that ends up in the coffers of the government, right? If your brother was a notary in Alberta and willing to work for free to do the transaction, you'd STILL have to pay a land transfer fee as the buyer, right?
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  #22  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:04 PM
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Originally Posted by speedog View Post
Alberta's is just a fee, not a tax as best as I've been able to figure out. One could call Alberta's a tax of sorts I suppose...
I replied to vid before reading the whole thread, but that was essentially my point

LOL at your "it's not a tax, it's merely a fee!"

Maybe the provincial NDP can consider the introduction of a PSF (Provincial Sales Fee) of a few percentage points...?
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  #23  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:09 PM
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Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
How is this land transfer fee anything but a land transfer tax...?

Notary's fees are one thing, but that's an inescapable transfer fee that ends up in the coffers of the government, right? If your brother was a notary in Alberta and willing to work for free to do the transaction, you'd STILL have to pay a land transfer fee as the buyer, right?
I was under the impression that in the other provinces the tax was another cost separate from the other land title fees (it wouldn't be the first case of government "double-dipping."), but I think I was incorrect in that assertion.
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  #24  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:31 PM
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So in Alberta, the fees (taxes) on a $400,000 home would be $130 today. In Toronto it would be $8,200..
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  #25  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:37 PM
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Interesting sidebar...

In Quebec the land transfer tax is officially known as the "droit de mutation immobilière" which kinda means the same as land transfer tax.

But everyone refers to it as "taxe de bienvenue", which is funny because this means "welcome tax", as in "welcome to home ownership or welcome to the municipality, and now pay this tax"...

In reality though it's actually a "taxe de Bienvenue" because the minister who instituted it in 1976 was named Jean Bienvenue...

There you have it. A useless but interesting story.
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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:51 PM
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I do recall that my gf (she's Anglo) officially translated it to "the Welcome Tax" when we dealt with it on our Lévis duplex in 2015. I have the feeling 99% of Quebec Anglos must do that, technically a mistranslation (the correct way would obviously be something like Bienvenue's Tax).

(And yes, I've always been aware of the fact it's named after the minister who introduced it. My dad told me that, a long time ago. But I suspect most younger people don't know it, and the "welcome tax" sense seems pretty natural/logical...)
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:55 PM
khabibulin khabibulin is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Interesting sidebar...

In Quebec the land transfer tax is officially known as the "droit de mutation immobilière" which kinda means the same as land transfer tax.

But everyone refers to it as "taxe de bienvenue", which is funny because this means "welcome tax", as in "welcome to home ownership or welcome to the municipality, and now pay this tax"...

In reality though it's actually a "taxe de Bienvenue" because the minister who instituted it in 1976 was named Jean Bienvenue...

There you have it. A useless but interesting story.
When I first bought a house in Quebec and I learned about this "welcome" tax, I quickly coined it as the "bend over" tax.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 4:58 PM
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Originally Posted by khabibulin View Post
When I first bought a house in Quebec and I learned about this "welcome" tax, I quickly coined it as the "bend over" tax.
From an Alberta point of view, these taxes (at least in QC / ON / MB) must really feel like highway robbery, I agree.
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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 6:16 PM
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Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
From an Alberta point of view, these taxes (at least in QC / ON / MB) must really feel like highway robbery, I agree.
Nah, there's probably other ways us Albertans are used to bending over for that other Canadians don't have to. As long as you're governed, you might as well have a tub of petroleum jelly close at hand.
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 6:38 PM
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Exactly how I see this.
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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2017, 11:33 PM
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I have one more house to buy next year so hopefully no LTT's in place by that time. Should be my last house hopefully. Won't have to worry about those things after that.
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 12:11 AM
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Originally Posted by mistercorporate View Post
Come on dude, you inherited a successful family business if i recall correctly, not like you started from scratch scraping pennies together living independently in some random grimy basement apartment
I'm 24 and I bought a house 2 years ago, with my own money. Got a general degree instead of an honours (saved thousands in tuition), lived with my parents for the first year of working to save money, had just enough for a down payment on a house in Kingston, where houses are cheap.
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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 1:28 AM
Rollerstud98 Rollerstud98 is online now
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I too bought my first house when I was 24-25, sucker doubled in price in 4 years! Lol. Bought a bigger house with a garage, now I want a smaller house with a bigger garage and bigger yard for my doggies!
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 1:49 AM
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Well there are others, as Barry Switzer might say, who were "born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple"

As for me, I'm fine being a renter for the moment. I don't have a burning desire to own until I decide to really settle down in a specific neighbourhood long-term. Even then, I'm not crazy about the idea of having an entire house. Unless I have kids, something smaller like laneway housing would be attractive for me as a more affordable, more manageable option, granted it's in a neighbourhood where I can access public amenities (good neighbourhood park, entertainment, groceries nearby, public sport installations like pools or gyms, etc) so that I don't feel like I need them at my own house.



Ultimately, I'm of the "why own when you can rent?" school of thought where I feel like I need a compelling reason to go out and own/maintain/dispose of something instead of just being able to access if when I need it for a fee. If it does becomes financially/personally advantageous to own, I'll do that, but home ownership isn't a "dream" or a life goal for me. If long-term renting is more financially advantageous, I see that as just as valid an option.
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 2:46 AM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc View Post
I'm 24 and I bought a house 2 years ago, with my own money. Got a general degree instead of an honours (saved thousands in tuition), lived with my parents for the first year of working to save money, had just enough for a down payment on a house in Kingston, where houses are cheap.
Yeah, I'd also say mistercorporate's estimation of my situation in my 20s isn't all that correct. I had my eye set on trying my luck in real estate, so I dropped my M.Sc. project and went to work with my dad. I lived frugally for a year, saving every penny, living at my parents... after a year, I had saved $20k, I managed to use that to buy a four story mixed use building in downtown Sherbrooke ($130k; the owner agreed to give me a $20k second mortgage; he wanted out, the building was a PITA for him at that point).

At the moment, I was daily-driving a rusted '89 VW Golf diesel, the most economical car available in the country, that I had paid $300 for.

My gf and friends were semi-mocking me for being a cheapskate generally, and also for living at my parents. In retrospect, it was all worth it, as I knew already back then it would.
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 2:53 AM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Originally Posted by Rollerstud98 View Post
I too bought my first house when I was 24-25, sucker doubled in price in 4 years! Lol.
My first building also more than doubled in price in the first ~5 years. I'm guessing our timeframes might have been similar... bought at ~7.5% interest rates, and by the time the rates had fallen to ~2.5%, the building had more than doubled (for the same ballpark of mortgage payments / net return for the buyer-owner).
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 2:56 AM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Originally Posted by Aylmer View Post
If it does becomes financially/personally advantageous to own, I'll do that...
You and I are in total agreement, then. That's basically been my one and only golden rule since the beginning, governing all my decisions to rent or buy for ~12 years now.
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 4:13 AM
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Originally Posted by speedog View Post
What with the province of Ontario in the news with it's upcoming foreign buyer tax and British Columbia currently having one, I got to thinking about land transfer taxes as one of the news articles I read had mentioned them and I could not recall ever paying a land transfer tax fir any of the properties I've bought in Calgary.

So more searching had me stumble upon this 'land transfer tax calculator' (link) and I was kind of gobsmacked how much home owners pay in land transfer taxes in other provinces.

Thus I have to ask is this something new in other provinces and will Alberta bring such a tax in?
Yeah well just another case where the mini-me Americans leave tax revenue on the table and then wonder why everything goes to shit in a commodity bust
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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 3:40 PM
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Yeah well just another case where the mini-me Americans leave tax revenue on the table and then wonder why everything goes to shit in a commodity bust
I wouldn't put all these measures in the same basket like that. Ideally, what you want to do is use these taxes as a behavioral incentive.

For example, you should want to have a PST. It encourages eco-friendly behaviors (buying less new stuff, favoring used stuff on kijiji over new stuff) and it's hard to find ways to get around it for the average person.

A land transfer tax, though... rewards people who don't move, and penalizes them for moving. And it rewards older rich people who bought before its introduction, and penalizes younger people who haven't yet bought, i.e. there's a generational unfairness aspect about it.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2017, 3:49 PM
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I remember when I first heard about other province's land transfer tax structure, I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach about what a grotesque cash grab it was for their respective governments. All that money changing hands in real estate deals being swallowed up in the vacuum of government.

A 2 million dollar property being sold in Toronto would require a 73 000 dollar cheque being written to the government. In Vancouver, 38 000 dollars. In Alberta, 435 dollars.

I'm not sure I could stomach writing such a large cheque to the government.

That said, we in Alberta have traditionally been taxed in different ways. We used to pay for library access, for example. We seem to have a much more "fee per use" driven tax system, where you pay for what you use, and it seems fair to me, despite paying for things that other people might not expect to pay for (like the library).
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