Does the "Foreign Buyer Ban" apply to Cape Breton?
The short answer is: Yes - a bit.
Starting on January 1, 2023, non-Canadians are prohibited from buying residential property for a period of two years under an act called the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act.
A "non-Canadian" is someone who is neither a citizen nor a non-resident or a corporation without sufficient Canadian control. The ban was recently amended to permit temporary residents to purchase property if they have sufficient presence in Canada, they are only buying one property, and the property is being purchased for under $500,000.
There are other exemptions; if, for example, a non-Canadian is inheriting Canadian property or if the property is a gift they are not subject to the ban.
There are also exemptions that apply to multi-unit dwellings that are outside the scope of this article.
One of the most difficult to define exemptions is for rural property and vacant land.
Rural Property.
The Foreign Buyer Ban applies to residential property, but does not include residential properties that are outside of census metropolitan areas or census agglomeration areas. What are those? A census metropolitan area, also known as a CMA, is a large city, like Toronto or Vancouver. A census agglomeration area, also known as a CA, is a grouping of communities centered around a core with a population of at least 10,000 people. Does that include Cape Breton? Yes, partially. Cape Breton is it's own CA, but the Cape Breton CA does not include all of Cape Breton Island. The map below shows the Cape Breton CA geographical area.
Source: Statistics Canada
As you can see, the area is large and includes many areas that we would consider "rural", such as Northside East Bay. However, all areas inside the blue line are considered part of the Cape Breton CA zone and are subject to the ban (as long as the other exemptions don't apply). Anything outside the blue line on the island is not subject to the ban.
The only other CMA and CA zones in Nova Scotia are Halifax, Truro, New Glasgow, and Kentville.
Vacant Land.
The Foregin Buyer Ban applies to residential property. Whether or not a property is "residential" is a question of zoning, not whether or not it has a house on it. The ban specifically exempts rural property that is zoned residential or mixed use, whether not it is in a CA or not. That means a non-Canadian can buy vacant land that is zoned residential or mixed use inside the Cape Breton CA zone.
Each property is different and each person's situation is different. If you have a question about whether or not the Foreign Buyer Ban applies to your transaction, we encourage you to contact one of our knowledgeable real estate lawyers.
This post was written by Anna Manley. If you'd like to contact Anna you can send her an email: anna@manleylaw.ca |
Everybody Pwned ‘;-- : The Pitfalls of Breach Ubiquity and the Prospects of Bill C-11
February 16, 2021There are changes coming to the information security landscape in Canada.
Bill C-11 was tabled in the House of Commons on December 2, 2020. It's long name: "An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts". This proposed legislation comes at a time when Canadian are relying more and more on electronic communication.
Why should you care?
Let's try a little experiment. Go here...
Not willing to put your email in to a random internet site recommended by some random woman you just met over the internet?
I get that.
Let’s use my two main email addresses.
personal email - No breaches reported
work email - Oh oh! - pwned! 1 breach.
NOTE: I was married in 2015 and being ever the romantic I changed my last name to match my spouse. This explains the no breaches on my personal email. My previous personal email had been involved in 7 breaches.
The breach my work email with was discovered by two security researchers. They found an unprotected server belonging to People Data Labs holding 1.2 billion records of personal information (email address, phone numbers, social media profiles, job history data). It’s unclear whether this information came from a breach or scrape (when someone use credentials that have been compromised to download all the information off of a site OR download all public information that was listed at public that perhaps should not have been).
People Data Labs is an aggregator - they collect publicly facing or available information and resell access to that information. Information has more meaning and value when it’s all put together.
Do I feel violated? … not really. Most of the information was publicly available - none of it was intensely personal (the closest thing to private information would have been social media profiles - but that’s just photos of cats so no biggy - right?).
(Although we've trained on this issue so much, every time my staff gets a spear-phishing email they report it to me with a great deal of smug satisfaction.)
341 - Data breach reports received under the Privacy Act678 - Data breach reports received under PIPEDA (The highest percentages of which were in the finance, telecommunications, and retail/sales sectors)
- We receive an attack or scan every 60 seconds.
- There are 5-6 credible concerning flags per week.
- We’ve stopped approximately 15 credible ransom ware attempts in the past three years.
- We stopped 4 spear-phishing attacks that would have resulted in potential breach.
s.57(1) Security Safeguards(1) An organization must protect personal information through physical, organizational and technological security safeguards. The level of protection provided by those safeguards must be proportionate to the sensitivity of the information.[...](3) The security safeguards must protect personal information against, among other things, loss, theft and unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use and modification.
Credit: pentestpartners.com/security-blog |
This post was written by Anna Manley. If you'd like to contact Anna you can send her an email: anna@manleylaw.ca |
Here's the order:
Effective as of 6:00 am on March 31, 2020, all retail and other commercial landlord are prohibited from exercising the remedies of notice to quit or distress available under a commercial lease, commercial agreement, the Tenancy and Distress for Rent Act, or otherwise for rent due on or after March 22, 2020 from a retail or commercial tenant who has been required to close their business or their business has between substantially and directly restricted under the requirements of a Medical Officer's order issued under the Health Protection Act.
Punishment for failure to comply with this order could result in fines between $500 and $10,000 for individuals and up to $100,000 for companies.
What does this mean?
Commercial leases have two main remedies when rent is unpaid:
- Notice to Quit - where the landlord evicts the tenant for unpaid rent.
- Distress for Rent - where the tenant has not paid rent for a certain period of time and the landlord can enter the space and sell their inventory, equipment, and other items to cover the unpaid rent. There is, of course, a property procedure for using this remedy.
This order does not apply to all tenants. If a tenant is an office space, for example, a landlord can still take advantage of the Notice to Quit and Distress for Rent remedies. The order only prevents these remedies from being used against tenants who are engaged in the following businesses:
- Gyms and fitness establishment,
- hair salon
- barber shop,
- spa,
- nail salon,
- body art establishment,
- restaurants offering in-person dining service,
- drinking establishment,
- registered day care,
- craft brewery or distillery with tasting room,
- personal service business serving only individuals,
- dentist,
- massage therapists,
- naturopathic doctor,
- Chinese medicine practitioner,
- Acupuncturist,
- Live, performing arts for audiences
Rent Deferral Support Program
The Nova Scotia government has also put in place a Rent Deferral Support Program aimed at helping landlords recoup some of their losses associated with the order. Support is available for up to $15,000 per tenant - up to a maximum of $50,000. The important thing to understand is that this is an indemnity, meaning you're not entitled to the $15,000 if you defer rent collection. You can only apply for the government to repay you for actual losses in the amount of $50,000 (maximum).
For example, if you sign an rent deferral agreement with a tenant and they fail to repay the rent as required under that rent deferral agreement, you can apply to this program to recoup the rent lost from that tenant for the period of time between April 1st and July 1st.
The criteria for qualifying includes having entered into a rent deferral agreement before April 1, 2020. This rent deferral agreement must cover the period of time between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2020. The Rent Deferral Agreements do not need to forgive the rent payable between April and July - the payments are deferred. The agreement must include provisions for repayment.
As an interesting side-note, the total amount for the program is capped at $5,000,000. Meaning, it's possible if the total claims by landlords across the province exceeds that amount, some landlords won't be getting paid or all landlords will be getting paid a little less. Time will tell how effective the program is, but for the time being, it provides a bit of certainty for landlords and tenants alike in these incredibly uncertain times.
This post was written by Anna Manley. If you'd like to contact Anna you can send her an email: anna@manleylaw.ca |