Canadian Adventure…Practicalities & Plans part 2

Goods to Follow- all our boxes!

As a seasonal resident with a holiday home or an overseas student studying in Canada, you are allowed 1 shipment of goods into the country to furnish/personalise your holiday home or student digs, duty free.

We shipped over 65 boxes full of essentials and personal effects with  http://www.cargobookers.co.uk  who were very reasonably priced but not perhaps brimming over with helpful advice about the logistics of it all. Through lots of internet surfing and questions to those that had done it all before on the forums at  http://www.britishexpats.com  I was able to glean the information I needed. Most of the official info can also be found on  http://www.cic.gc.ca .

When bringing in goods to Canada there are very strict procedures that need to be followed and there really are no corners to be cut. Each and every box we packed had to be labelled with our name and address, its destination and a box number but even worse than this was the fact that every single item in each and every box had to be individually itemised with its value and listed next to its box number and copies made in triplicate ( 1 for exporters, 1 for Canada Customs (when you land in Canada) and 1 for yourselves). Its one hell of a laborious process!

Once you get off the plane in Canada you need go to customs to declare your ‘goods to follow’ for your holiday home and then show them your list (ours was nearly 60 pages long!!!!) They will then question you briefly with regards to the contents of the boxes to make sure that you know the rules of what can and cannot be brought into Canada and once they are happy with it all they will stamp each page of your list before wishing you an enjoyable stay in Canada and you are then free to go on your way.

But beware!…..that’s not the end of it!!! Two weeks later when our boxes arrived we still had to sign & pick up paperwork and then bimble across the city to Customs Canada in Halifax for more documents to be stamped before returning the paperwork to the warehouse where our boxes were held where the nice kind gentleman was who ‘could arrange for his brother to deliver all our boxes for $400 (£160) if we wanted’……..we snapped this offer up as we had been quoted over 3 times this amount by our shippers in the UK and at this moment in time, the last thing we wanted was another long, tiring day trip to the city with a ‘U-Haul’ and 3 kids in tow (not to mention 65 boxes to unload at the end of it!)

A week later all our boxes arrived much to our delight and it was little things like the saucepans that I found I had missed the most!!!!

    

 

Buying a home in Nova Scotia from abroad by Carolyn Ekins http://www.acountrylife.com

A step by step guide to the house buying process in Canada and Nova Scotia.

 

Buying a home in Nova Scotia, either for investment, holidays or eventual permanent residency is a simple process even if you live abroad and are not Canadian….we did just that in 2004, mostly by e-mail from the UK and were pleasantly surprised just how easy the process was.

Before I start to explain the process it maybe worth clarifying a few points and address some commonly asked questions…

Are there any different rules for non-residents buying property in Canada? No……its exactly the same process for a Canadian, Nova Scotian or resident of another country. However, as are the tax laws in the UK, if this is your second home or even your only home and you are not a resident of Canada for tax purposes when you sell the property, you will be taxed on the profit you make on the sale. Check with your provinces tax office.

Can I live in Canada once I have bought my home? No….not permanently. Canada is such a beautiful country and Nova Scotia such a lovely province that many people buy second homes or cabins here. You can stay in Canada on holiday for up to a 6 month stretch (remember you are not allowed to work in the country or province without a work permit). People who spend their summers here or even 6 months of the year (minus a day) are known as seasonal residents.

Is there anyway I can make Canada my home temporarily or permanently? Yes…..many people come to the province to study or learn a new trade, perhaps to prepare themselves for permanent immigration and even to boost their points. Other people find a HRDC approved job and can work many years in Canada even while their immigration process is underway. Selling up in the UK, buying a home in Canada and moving out here on work or study permits is risky while awaiting permanent residency. There is no guarantee that permanent residency will be granted, however, this is a risk many are willing to take rather than waiting 3 or 4 years for processing. Only you can weigh up the pros and cons and make that decision.

For full details of the permanent immigration process go to http://www.cic.gc.ca

A brief guide to house buying the process

So you’ve been looking through the Canadian ‘Multiple Listing System’ at http://www.mls.ca and seen some homes you really like the look of . The next step is to make an enquiry about the property and you do this by contacting the ‘Realtor’ whose name appears on the listing. In our case we saw just the house for us at http://www.tradewindsrealty.com which list many properties along the South Shore of Nova Scotia and further afield too. We contacted the realtor (Monica Sontrop) who was very helpful and professional answering detailed questions we had about everything. We found this such a refreshing change to the system we were used to in the UK where often your questions were ignored. Monica must have spent hours answering our questions by e-mail and sending us photos- she definitely went far beyond the call of duty but as potential buyers who didn’t really have any idea of the house purchasing process in Canada we were extremely grateful. It really did make all the difference!

Realtor acts for both parties

After much research, many photos and many, many questions we felt we really wanted to put in an offer on the house we had been discussing. We had been made aware that we could ask Monica to work on our behalf by entering into a limited dual agency relationship (this service provided by realtors is free to the buyer ) and further details can be found at http://www.nsar.ns.ca/pdf_files/form126.pdf. Basically this means that the realtor acts impartially for both the seller & buyer and you sign an agreement with the realtor. The next step was for us to make an offer. Our offer was a little unique because it contained a clause that allowed us to come out to Nova Scotia within 14 days to view the house so the offer was subject to a satisfactory viewing of the property and home inspection. Our first offer was accepted and within 14 days my husband flew out to view the house and the home inspection was done during his visit too. It was all very quick and very professional. Monica was able to advise us of a solicitor too so the process got underway quite quickly. I would highly recommend using the expertise of a realtor in the house buying process and through Monica we were able to book our solicitor, home inspection and even a gardener with ease!

Home Inspection

Again this was such a refreshing change from what we had experienced in the UK. The home inspection can be done in the presence of the buyer. In our case the home inspection took place during my husbands visit and he accompanied ‘Phil Rubarth’ around the house and barns for 2 hours while he methodically listed all his observations. A few days later we received a detailed report via e-mail and a week later the same report presented nicely in a file for our records. This gave us a really good idea of the condition of the house and what possible changes that would need to be made in the future. Luckily for us the report was very satisfactory..

Solicitor

Once the offer was accepted and we confirmed after viewing that we were happy to go ahead with the purchase all the details were then passed to a local solicitor. We had been recommended Derek Wickstrom and we were very happy with his service. The house purchasing process and legalities are much quicker to close (complete) here in Nova Scotia and just four weeks later everything was signed and sealed following all the legal title checks and sheriffs certificate etc. Your solicitor should be able to advise you and send all documentation by e-mail or fax to you which you then can sign and return the same way. Once again following the close of the sale we were sent a nicely presented file with all the documents labelled for our records.

Payment for house and for services

During my husbands visit to Nova Scotia he set up a non- residents bank account with the http://www.bmo.com who have branches in just about every town. You need to pre-book your appointment and you will need forms of identification such as passport, birth certificate …the bank will advise you. The process was very quick and you are instantaneously given an ‘instabank’ card which you can use immediately in most ATM’s (cashpoint machines) and in stores where you you can pay for goods with your card by typing in your pin number on the keypad provided. Several cheques are also given to you use until your proper cheque book arrives. Setting up a Canadian bank account was useful as we were able to transfer lump sums of money through our UK bank and also through http://www.hifx.com . Hifx enabled us to buy currency at a very good exchange rate before we purchased which makes all the difference on a large sum of money such as a house purchase. Fees and of course payment to the solicitor for your new home can of course be made directly through your bank in your home country but we did find having set up a bank account in Nova Scotia saved on the charges for transferring money…it was much cheaper to issue cheques from our account in Canada!

 

Canadian Adventure Practicalities & Plans part 1

July 2004.....OK… enough of this rose tinted guff! (but I’ll get back to that shortly as its just so awesome here!)

After the initial couple of days spent wandering around the farm aimlessly with sporadic exclamations of Wowwwww, we had to knuckle down to practicalities and the next week or so was taken up with lots of travelling and again even more paperwork. We tackled these necessities in this order (I may go into rather un-interesting details here but this could possibly be of some use to anyone thinking of moving to Canada)

Collect Pooh from Airport… ermmmmm…and before you say anything I don’t mean faeces for some bizarre recipe but rather our middle aged, bad breathed poodle.

Pooh arrived at Halifax airport 2 days after we landed in Canada.  http://www.airpets.co.uk  organised the flights for us as it was impossible for her to travel with us on our budget airline as they did not have the facilities so we arranged a short stay at the airport kennels before she flew to Nova Scotia with Air Canada a couple of days later. It was an expensive process costing about £800 in total and had we done it ourselves we could have saved 50% but we didn’t feel too bad about doing it this way as our air-flights through  http://www.canadian-affair.com  had saved us over £1000 in comparison to booking with Air Canada.

Anyway…..what we thought would be a quick trip to and from the airport to collect said pooch, took considerably longer than anticipated as ‘Airpets’ had given us the wrong landing time of the Air Canada flight so when we arrived at the cargo bay to claim her we were advised by the clerk to kill a few hours at ‘Tim Hortons’ (everyone loves Tim Hortons coffee in Canada and it is rumoured to have addictive qualities) until her flight came in.

We did just that and several coffees, iced cappuccinos and boxes of ‘Tim Bits’ later we bimbled back over to the cargo bay to wait for the airport vet to give ‘Pooh’ the all clear before signing her off. Once this was done we then had to take signed paperwork over to customs in the main airport terminal to get the final stamp of approval and were then able to finally take her home to the farm at long last!

 

Read more on my web site http://www.acountrylife.com

 

Podcast and interview with someone moving to Nova Scotia  http://www.acountrylife.com/aclrr/ACLRuralRadio4.mp3

 

 

June 2004....Enormous skies…..infact enormous everything were my thoughts as I took my first peak at Canada through the glare of sunshine and polished chrome at Halifax airport in Nova Scotia. Almost slightly embarrassed about our tentitivity as we lingered outside the main doors of the airport we eventually set off to the car hire opposite to pick up the newest car that we had ever had and to drive in the direction of Lunenburg County to locate our new home and new lives in a place and country that up until now I had only read about. It all seemed quite surreal and even slightly bizarre that were now the proud owners of a Canadian smallholding……the bizarre bit being that we were now longer owned a home in the UK and that we had used our small amount of capital from the sale of our Welsh farm to buy a property in a country we were only entitled to ‘holiday’ in! (more about this later).

The first scary experience came almost immediately and that was of course negotiating the roads on the wrong side (actually the right side as Canadians will tell you!). David had luckily visited Canada for the first time earlier on in the year and having driven around during this time in treacherous & snowy conditions, in my mind, this made him an expert and of course the honorary title of ‘official taxi service to strange family from the UK’ was bestowed upon him…….it would take many weeks before I plucked up the courage to relieve him from this title on occasions!

An hour and a half later we were nearly there having turned off the main highway 20 miles back and now finding ourselves in a vast rural area filled with rolling hills, lakes and trees with small brightly coloured homesteads appearing in clearings or near the roads. It was hard to take everything in not least because we were extremely tired after an emotional roller-coaster of a day (cue my family at Swindon train station blubbing) and now the anticipation of catching my first glimpse of our new home had given me tunnel vision somewhat and I think even the children were transfixed on the road ahead……and then it appeared and we all cheered loudly.

If anything the place looked even more lovely than the photos…….The little wooden house stood back from the road surrounded by majestic maple trees with a pond to its left and a garden of small shrubs and trees to its right and acres of grass all around it. Slightly behind the house and pond was the renovated barn of which the top level was on rent to our tenants as this had been converted to an apartment by the previous owners. This, we hoped, would help a little with our living expenses during our stay having no guaranteed income!

Further back and to the rear of the front garden stood the other barn which looked enormous if not rather scary but worth further investigation (wonder what we would find in there?). Behind the house was a view to die for. Being in a slightly elevated position we could see miles out onto layer upon layer of tree covered hills and we stood quietly for a few moments in awe of it all before being brought back to reality by our tenants, Lynne & Tony, who had popped out to say hello and who kindly presented us with a lovely bottle of locally produced wine.

We nattered away for several minutes before being ‘rained off’ by our first experience of black fly who obviously found our incomers flesh rather tasty, and we hastily retreated inside to see inside our ‘little wooden house’ for the very first time.