Comment by neom
2 years ago
I believe the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act went into effect this year, it's going to be interesting to see if that does anything to help the situation, I'm cautiously hopeful. Fun story: When I graduated from college (20ish years ago) I moved to Toronto, one of my school buddies was a Chinese guy who mentioned he would be able to get me decent rent on a unit in a new construction condo because of some family connection. I took him up on it and lived there for 2 years. Over those 2 years I lived on a "ghost floor" - I was the only person on my floor and nobody was on the floor above or below. A family office had bought up 3 floors in the building and I was living on one of them. It was surreal to say the least.
They'll just incorporate in Canada.
I'm sure they'll find a way around it, however it's worth noting The Act is on direct or indirect buying and specifically addresses people attempting to circumvent through incorporation. There are pretty stiff penalties for not doing good diligence of the source of the funds. I'm not disagreeing people will figure out ways around it, only that it isn't going to be quite as simple as that in practice.