How much are they? What are they paid in reference to? Property purchase price, size/area or occupation as in the UK? Do they vary significantly between provinces / neighbourhoods? We are hoping to live in New Westminster or Burnaby, BC?

Thanks

Usually as a percentage of a (Provincial) Goverment valuation of the property. It's normally somewhere around 1% of the property value per annum, but things like farms are assessed only on the residential part of the farm (the house + gardens). The valuation is done largely by computer algorithm (Johnny Prescott has bought one of the popular software systems used in the US in order to do Council Tax revaluations). It goes on dozens of factors like floor size of the property, garden size, quality of views, type of heating system, etc. Each province sets its own rules, but they appear to be roughly the same.

When you look at a real estate web site it usually lists the tax for the particular property.

K.

I work for a firm of Chartered Surveyors and have been heavily involved in Council Tax and the revaluations with the Government VO in the UK. We developed a small web-based software package called "ctassist" to help schools, military, universities and residential care homes to manage their Council Tax payments. It also makes recommendations for discounts, holidays and exemptions! Wow - this has turned out like a sales pitch!

I hate council tax and think that basing it on size/area -vs- occupation is much more sensible. I actually thought the poll tax was a good idea - they messed up by trying to charge students and the unemployed - no sense in trying to get money out of people who have none!! That's another discussion...

Thanks for the prompt response. Do you know if there is any central publically available records to see the value/tax payable on each property?

Thanks
Jase (& Heth!)

Yes, there are probably records. But each province in Canada does its own thing, and usually steam powered. I bet if you do find the records office then you probably have to turn up in person and get out the microfiche reader. And make an appointment. Which will be broken because the official "just went to lunch". I'm not familiar with Canadian slang, so am still searching for a word that's like "mañana" but doesn't convey the same sense of urgency.

If you have a specific property, or want to get a guide, take a look at the real estate web sites. They list the taxes for the property. As I said, the taxes were about 1% of property prices, but as property has shot up, the percentage should (in theory) fall, although I bet a whole load of counties have taken the opportunity to snatch more tax.

K.

Its done at a municipal level so go to the municiapalities website to get more info on the rates there

http://www.city.burnaby.bc.ca/reside...rty.html#rates

http://www.city.new-westminster.bc.c...pertytaxes.htm
House prices are much higher here of course.

The tables are per $1000 of assessed value, which is often less than the purchase/selling price of a house.

Thank you for the links - they are exceptionally useful!

Is water a nationalised / provincialised (!?) industry? Here in the UK it is privatised (badly) and new homes pay for water, drainage, sewerage, cleaning etc in relation to the amount of water the household uses - recorded on a meter. In Canada is it similar to the old rates system we had in the UK?

Thanks

Until you come along and buy the house of course, at which point its assesment will be updaed to the purchase price.



So dont take the current years taxes as at all applicable to what you will be paying in a years time

I pay about 200 CAD per year more in Alberta than I do in Manitoba, but the Alberta property is assessed at over three times the value of the Manitoba one so yes, there's quite a difference in rates.

My tax assessed value of the house was about 20% higher than the purchase price and it was not adjusted.

I called the assessment company and told them I would sell them my house, but they explained that the assessed value is based on a formula of acrage, square footage and a few other factors compared to all the sales prices in the neighbourhood, and that the actual purchase price had nothing to do with it.

Granted our house was much cheeper per sqft than any othe house in the area, but it was built in 1950 and nothing done with it ever since. We bought it from the original owner who had been living in a nursing home for years leaving the house sitting empty.

Well I guess we just have to live with the tax

Well, no, you can appeal MPACs assesment. Interesting what you say as the mpac webite says one of the factors is to "compare your assessed value with sales and values of similar properties in the area", so the sale of your own property is a pretty strong indicator of the market value of an extremely similar property in your area Sounds like another government customer service operative who doesnt know what the hell they are talking about.

If you can get objective evidence that they overvalued, compared to say other houses in the neighbourhood, then its worth the effort to appeal. They have enough bad press to not want to generate more disatisfied customers.

Costs money to lodge the appeal IIRC, and its a pain in the arse to go through. But a friend here did it and they lopped (eventually) a significant amount of the assesment.

Of course, MPAC reassesed it the next time around at an even higher value than they were beaten down from on appeal the first time... Bunch of useless bastards, but there is an appeal proceedure FWIW.

Actually we have an interesting situation.

After having lived in the house for a year we are probably going to rent it out for a while before selling, as we are probably moving to BC for a job. Now the thing about that is that we have to provide reasonable proof (tax assessment, appraisal or other) of the value of the house at the time of changing it form principle residence to rental property and will eventually have to pay tax on the difference between this value and the sales price when we sell.

Obviously the higher the assessed value is above our original purchase price, the more of the value increase will be tax free, heck who knows, if we sell 5% below the assessed mpac value (which is 20% over our purchase price) we will have made 15% on the house and theoretically be able to claim back taxes for the 5% which would be capital loss during the rental period, hahaha. Call that biting themselves in the .... with their own assessment.

Well, there you go, a silver lining

Good Luck in BC...remember, Bring Cash.

This sounds just like the UK!!!

Thanks iaink

If it works out it will be a very good job, plus real estate in the northern Okanagan is still about 30% cheaper than in the GTA.