Wolfie and Will

Bit of a random question here.

When we move at the end of the year we will be shipping a small amount of stuff from the UK either via sea or air cargo. My Dad happens to be doing a one year sabbatical in Chicago and has had to furnish an entire flat whilst he is there. He is leaving the US shortly after we arrive and so has offered to gift us his furniture which is fab news and will hopefully save us a small fortune. We just need to hire a van and drive to pick it all up. Obviously, we will probably have to work quite hard to get a good rental deal (but we have loads of experience in doing this) but I just want to check that as long as I declare all of the furniture on our goods to follow list, I can still bring it into the company legally and tax free even if it is arriving at a different time, from a different location.

I am only willing to go and pick it all up if we don't incur a ton of hidden costs else it probably won't be worth it. I can imagine if we don't have all our duck in a row that it could make for a pretty tough boarder crossing.

Can anyone foresee any major problems with this plan? I have only scratched the surface of the shipping info and wiki!

Former Lancastrian

Read these 3 x links to see the difference between gifts and bequests and settlers effects regarding goods
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publicati...d2-1-4-eng.pdf
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publicati...d2-1-5-eng.pdf
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publicati...2-2-1-eng.html

Wolfie and Will

Ah thanks! As predicted its a tad more complex than I had hoped!

Former Lancastrian

It will all depend on the quantity of goods and their values and if they are used goods.
Yes technically as you don't own the goods you can't claim them as yours as a settler.
Will all depend on the CBSA officer who reviews the list and how they choose to deal with it.

Wolfie and Will

The value of the items will definitely be over $60 each (sofa, couple of beds, table etc) and my Dad is in full health so looks like bequesting them to us is not an option! I might give them boarder services a call anyway. Its a shame as my Dad was hoping for an easy way of getting rid of some furniture he would have only used for a year and is trying to do us a favour. Its all quite cheap stuff though so I don't want to drive all the way there and then get stung with a massive bill at the end.

SchnookoLoly

We had a bit of this issue recently, actually, so perhaps my experience will help.

Back in November, my husband and I went down to the US to pick up some things from his grandmother. She hasn't passed away yet, but moved to a home so had a lot of furniture going spare. It was distributed among the grandchildren, so MrS and I went down to the US to pick up a few pieces - a few bits of furniture, some "keepsake" dishes, a cutlery set, etc. We drove down in an empty 18-ft van, filled it, and drove back.

On the way back, the border agent unsurprisingly asked us what we were bringing back. We explained the situation - grandmother in a home, goods distributed amongst family, etc. She asked for a copy of the will stating this. We said we didn't really have one - she hasn't passed away yet! She needed to offload the furniture so instead of leaving it in storage, we'd come down to take it. There was a lot of back and forth because she kept asking for a value of the goods - what do you value an 80 year old dresser at?!

Anyways, after a lot of back and forth, we were sent over to the side to be searched (shocker). The guy had a look at what we had in the truck, and determined that as we had been gone for 4 days, what we were bringing back was probably under our limit.

So that was it, we were on our way.

So that might be an option - if what you're bringing is worth less than $1600 ($800 each x2 if you're out for more than 72 hours) then that might be a way to go about it. So make a weekend trip out of it... (though as you say, might have issues with it being over $60 per item, so a lot of it probably just depends on the officer...)

Hope that helps

Wolfie and Will

Thanks, thats really helpful! I am afraid I don't know anything about the limits for bring stuff over in 72 hours, so I will definitely look into that. It's definitely all quite cheap stuff (IKEA mainly) and will probably include a sofa bed, bed frame, table, chairs, coffee table and misc kitchen equipment. Not a whole heap but definitely helpful if your just starting out. One thing I don't understand is how they value everything. How would they know if a coffee table is worth more than $60 for example?

SchnookoLoly

It's the standard limits for what a Canadian resident (PR or citizen) can bring back into Canada without paying duty - http://www.dutyfreecanada.com/customs-allowances/
- just noticed it's 48 hours, not 72! My mistake! Click on "Canadians visiting the US".

We weren't sure how to value things either - how do you value an 80 year old dresser?! You can probably just say everything is from your dad, it's all used (nothing new), and write out a list of what's there. If you have the time, youc an probably go on craigslist/kijiji and see what that type of thing broadly goes for... so you can get some kind of value on it. Used ikea table, used ikea sofa, whatever. If you both go down together as PRs (and not before you are properly PRs!) then you should be able to bring back $1600 worth of stuff.

Hope that helps...

Wolfie and Will

Is there a difference between PR and properly PR?! We are landing in Oct and probably making this trip early in Feb/March, before he moves home. This seems like a good way forward through. I doubt the value of the goods, especially 2nd hand will add up to $1600 and I like the idea of not complicating our goods to follow and keeping this whole event separate from landing. Getting into the whole $60 gift malarky just seems way to complicated to bother with.

SchnookoLoly

I meant actually landed PR, as opposed to having PR issued bt not landed yet. So as long as you make the trip after you land you're good to go.

Again, this maybe was just how the officer dealt with our case - not sure if this is the 100% legal way or whatever, but this was our experience when we brought the stuff up from my husband's grandmother.