Yeah I think I remember reading something years ago about a parent who put their kid on their title, but the kid lived in their own separate house. The parent died and then the kid and got dinged with the Spec tax or something to that effect? (I can't find the article)

For estates valued over $50,000 here in BC, the probate fee is 1.4%. With a $2M house, we're looking at ~$28k in probate fees.

In this case, I feel like that no matter how people try to plan for it, the gov is always gonna win from getting their cut on the inherited assets. Transfer (home) ownership to the children before the parents die, and the family would have to pay higher property tax as well as getting dinged for capital gain on a non-primary residence. Have the parents keep the house until they pass away, and then you get dings with the probate fees.

Personally, I think inheritance tax / probate fees are straight up ripoffs where the gov is just trying to snatch a final quick buck off the deceased person and his family. But it is what it is.

Someone gets 2 million for being born and pays 28k, I work for 2 million and I pay like 700k. I don’t really feel like such a minuscule amount is unfair.

Yah!!! I demand equal

Argument is that taxes were paid by the parents for the assets they own. That’s why the PR exemption is great, no taxes when the property is disposed at death if it’s their only home on a house that was 50K.

What about putting the property in a living trust instead adding children's name to the title?

We're going through this situation right now. Since my dad passed away, it's been a waiting game as everything is just queued. With the title on my parents property being tenancy in common, right of survivorship doesn't apply, even though my dad's will states the property is to be left to my mom, his estate still has to pass probate. We've been told it can take 6 to 12 months. The kicker to this is although my mom's name is on title she can't make any changes or decisions till after probate passes and with the mortgage that just matured, she cant even renew nor add any of our names onto title.

Why add the kids name onto title? Everyone's situation is different. With us having gone though with my dad being sick and not being able to make sound decisions, if my mom was to be incapacitated in any way, without any of our names on title we wont be able to continue making mortgage payments, property tax or even potentially sell the property.

Sorry you’re dealing with the added hassle after dealing with the loss. That sucks. I’ve heard B.C. Makes things unnecessarily difficult when dealing with wills and estates.
Reminds me I need to deal with all that stuff, and anyone who’s in here that has kids should definitely do that if they haven’t already.

I had some tittle change things with a condo last year a was shocked to hear from the lawyer that probate takes a year in BC (not sure about other provinces) how. That’s insane.

When my grandma passed away in 2007 it was like a month. I’m not sure what changed.

My wife recently had to deal with her grandma dieing and having to change the title on grandmas house due to her owning part of it

The forms you have to fill out and the beaucracy of land title etc. is totally insane and seems like it’s intentionally difficult, or at the very least, poorly designed and it’s no wonder people don’t deal with these issues up front because it’s fucking incredibly tedious.

On the one form to describe how the ownership is now being divided due to a death, you have to tell them in 4 different ways how the ownership is now divided, what percentage is being transferred, what percentage is retained, etc.

For someone who works in quality who id trust with signing away my life and be assured the forms were filled in correctly, she had to reach out to land title 2 separate times and in the end still basically made a guess to a couple lines on the form. It’s crazy

Trusts are still taxed according to an individuals bracket

Does adding a kid to your title automatically take away their chances of getting all the first time home buyers perks?

And what about the case of gf who turned wife. Where you own property while you have a gf..... Now you're married to the gf.... With the wife not on title, is wife still eligible for first time home time buyer perks?

Who's the individual on the trust? sorry, not very educated on this topic.

^lawl, isnt your kids like fucking super young? you should wait till these little fuckers are in their 20's/30's so you can evaluate whether or not they deserve anything. If they turn out to be absolute dog shit kids, then you can take all your money and go spend it on yourself ala reverse mortgage, etc.

Yes,

Getting married also fucks you over. Since she married to someone who has house, they take away their first time hb and we perks.

And yes probate can take years, so you better make sure your remaining parent or you can front the payments if you need to sell. Gov takes their cut and sweet time.

You should be able to renew mortgage at bank though, and they probably will shrink your heloc limit as soon as you tell them someone died. So you better Max it out, pull out all available balance before you tell them and they reduce your limit.

I hate their wording but this is from CRA

You will be considered to be a first-time home buyer if you did not, at any time in the current calendar year before the withdrawal (except the 30 days immediately before the withdrawal) or at any time in the preceding four calendar years, live in a qualifying home (or what would be a qualifying home if located in Canada) as your principal place of residence that either you owned or jointly-owned, or your current spouse or common-law partner (at the time of the withdrawal) owned or jointly-owned.

For example, if you are making a withdrawal on July 31, 2025, you cannot have lived in a home as your principal place of residence that either you or your spouse or common-law partner owned or jointly-owned from January 1, 2021, to June 30, 2025.


So even common law fucks you over

Yes adding the kids name does take away FTB perks much like adding your spouses name after the wedding.

Sorry. I mistyped. Not according to an individual, but rather the trust itself is still subject to taxation. How much or at what bracket, I'm not too sure.

https://onyxlaw.ca/how-do-family-trusts-work-in-canada/

If the kid owns their own place already and adds their name to their parents house, they'd have taxes owing on the increased value from when their name was added on title to when the property was sold. Taxes owing here might be worse than if they had just paid probate instead.

Most of us find it a ripoff when we privately buy a (used) car from another owner, and have to pay taxes on the purchase price to the province. The probate fee being ripoff is exactly the same thing -- this is private money, and it has already been subjected to taxation at the time when it was earned. So why should it be taxed again when the money is being passed down from parents to children?

Moreover, if the money is just given to the children before the parent passes away, then it is just money being privately given. No taxes is ever paid on that, and that transfer of money / assets is literally none of the government's business. So why should it be any different just because asset transfer is happening after the parent has passed away?

Of course I fully understand that the gov wants to get a cut of the money/assets changing hands. And that's exactly what makes it a ripoff.

Same reason my post tax income gets taxed again when I buy something, cause every time money changes hands it gets taxed.
If anything the taxes on inheritance should go up significantly and tax on money earned should go down significantly. Then at least the person who has to work for it would have a better chance at success in relation to the person that won a birth lottery.
It being tiered would also be a much better way. You get 500k, you don't get taxed, you get a million, you get taxed some, you get 10 million, you get taxed a shitload. Generational wealth is spiralling out of control and like everything else that's currently an issue here in canada, it should have been dealt with a generation ago.

Shhhh... the entirety of Van West just told you to calm down.

Tax the workers, not the second wealth generation folks who can "explore their interests" in their early 30s.

Parents regularly give money to their children regardless of whether they are minor or adult children, and people regularly give money to their lovers and such as well. It is money changing hands and ownership as well. But no government would dare to try imposing a tax on this sort of transactions, nor is it possible (practical / viable / enactable) to do so.

So why should it be any different just bcos the giver is dead? The taxation can be easily avoided by simply giving the money away before the giver dies. So I don't really see the point of legislating something like an inheritance tax or probate fee when such an easy and entirely legal workaround can be used to avoid the tax.

Consumption tax is not necessarily a bad thing. Essential items should not get taxed, and we practice that to a certain extent here in Canada.

You are correct that generational wealth is spiraling out of control, contributing to an ever worsening wealth inequity around the world. However, I don't believe in inheritance tax or probate fees being the solution to address this. IMO a far more effective solution would be a general wealth tax, ideally one that involves as many countries in the world as possible. (But of course, that'll never fly.) The rationale for that is pretty simple -- when you become sufficiently wealthy, society expects you to bear a greater responsibility to look after the well being of other less fortunate individuals.

From Estate Lawyer website,

What is the probate fee in BC?
The probate fee in BC is roughly 1.4%. More specifically, there is no probate fee for the first $25,000. In between $25,000 and $50,000, the fee is 0.6%. And for amounts over $50,000, the fee is 1.4%. See the Probate Fee Act of British Columbia for the exact wording or simply use our probate fee calculator to see how much probate fee is payable on BC estates.

So it is 'scaled' except these brackets are probably from the 1950's. They need to adjust these up to like 2025 standards to maybe like:
0% for up to $100K
0.6% from $100K-200K
1.4% thereafter

Do I agree with taxes on inheritance, no. Do I think it's reasonable for 'fees' ... kinda. I mean some poor chap has to push the pen for all the admin when a person dies. There are lots of record keeping, official documents, citizenship record, pension, etc. that needs to be done properly when someone dies. Call it 'documention' fee or 'dealer prep' fees of dying.

At the end of the day, if you get $1M inheritance, you pay $14,000, which isn't nothing but when you just inherited $1M ... I'm not particularly bothered by that nor am I crying you a river if you have to pay that.

One thing I can say, from experience, is that the process of going through probate in BC is faster than in ON, maybe 2 months vs. 6 months. So bcrdukes, for your spouse and/or children's sakes, move back to BC soon.

Anyone have a structural engineer in Vancouver they'd recommend for an opinion on removing a small stub of a load-bearing wall? It's short (5 ft) but we want to make sure our contractor is sizes it correctly.