Hi guys,
Can anyone share your experiences with relocation packages offered by your Canadian employer? Were you offered enough to cover all of your expenses? Did you have to negotiate or was the package offered to you straight away?
We are currently waiting for our WP's to come through. My husband has got a job in Edmonton via intra-company transfer. The Canadian side is pretty keen on him coming to work for them. However, there hasn't been anything said about giving us a relocation package. Hubby asked a several times about what kind of assistance they can provide with regards to our move. No figure so far....Getting kind of concerned now. We don't expect much, but some help would come in handy.
I would love to hear your stories !

Hi guys,
Can anyone share your experiences with relocation packages offered by your Canadian employer? Yes
Were you offered enough to cover all of your expenses? Yes
Did you have to negotiate or was the package offered to you straight away? Straight away
We are currently waiting for our WP's to come through. My husband has got a job in Edmonton via intra-company transfer. The Canadian side is pretty keen on him coming to work for them. However, there hasn't been anything said about giving us a relocation package. Hubby asked a several times about what kind of assistance they can provide with regards to our move. No figure so far....Getting kind of concerned now. We don't expect much, but some help would come in handy.
I would love to hear your stories !

My company paid for 2 weeks hotel costs, and that was it, not that I was overly concenred as we were going to move regardless

rgds scotty

I came over last summer on an intra-company transfer. My company paid for flights and the first couple of weeks' accommodation up-front, but I paid for the shipping out-of-pocket and am (still :curse: ) in the process of sorting out the expenses claim. I suppose I should have got a more definite agreement in writing as to what expenses would be met by whom, but the debate now seems to have moved on to the fact that since I initiated the request for a transfer to Canada, it's not the same as being "deputed" abroad for work. My counter-claim is that this wasn't made clear at the time and I was given to understand that moving expenses would be covered. I think it's all related to the fact that most people the company moves arrive with a couple of suitcases and maintain a household in their home country, whereas we had a 40ft container and moved lock, stock and barrel....

A bit tedious to say the least, but if in the end those costs are not going to be met, you can at least offset relocation costs against tax (so long as the difference between the distance of your old house and your new house to your new place of work is more than 40km... the width of the Atlantic just about covers it!).

My advice would be to keep asking and ensure you get a definitive agreement before you go - as you say, even if it's not much, it's better to know and budget for that than to expect something and not get it!

Oh, and as Scotty commented, our argument is slightly weakened by the fact the company knows we wanted to move anyway, and doing it through the company made the whole process cheaper, easier and much quicker for us - so fundamentally I don't care if we don't get everything back

Thanks for your story, Oakvillian! My husband was also told that because he initiated the transfer and not them, they would only provide "some" assistance and not cover everything. As you say, it is better to know what they can offer, so we can budget accordingly. We'll just keep bugging them

I would try obviously to get some sort of commitment to this and make sure that it is in your Hubby's Contract of Employment too !

Our $10 k will pay for our container nothing else, had to pay for accommodation,flights etc out of our own pocket but we weren't expecting the relocation fund at all so it was a bonus to us.

Gaynor
x

Thanks, Gaynor. I think, because it is the first time they are relocating someone from abroad, everything is so disorganised. If I remeber correctly, when we first starting talking about this relocation they said something like "go ahead and pay what you have to pay and we'll reimburse you afterwards". But this was way back in December.. Nothing since...

"you can at least offset relocation costs against tax (so long as the difference between the distance of your old house and your new house to your new place of work is more than 40km... the width of the Atlantic just about covers it!)."

Bit behind on posting but is this correct? I was told that it only applied to moves within Canada not from abroad.

"you can at least offset relocation costs against tax (so long as the difference between the distance of your old house and your new house to your new place of work is more than 40km... the width of the Atlantic just about covers it!)."

This only applies to Canadian Citizens/ Pemanent residents, moving within Canada, not to Brits moving internationally. I went through this with CRA, and that is what i was told. Bit of a blow really.

you're quite right, of course - not sure what planet I was on with that one; I inquired about this at tax return time and learned it was a big fat non-starter... must be wishful (wistful?) thinking on my part