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You have to show proof of citizenship and residency during conveyance. When my wife and I recently bought, our driver licences and passports were recorded by t

You have to show proof of citizenship and residency during conveyance. When my wife and I recently bought, our driver licences and passports were recorded by the lawyer, pretty much just to tackle this issue. A foreign investor would need to arrange for straw purchasers to avoid the law, but that in itself would be an act of consciousness of guilt for breaking this law.

dan-robertson 4y ago
Suppose I’m in the position of the person in comment I replied to above: I look out of my window and see some empty apartments. Some time later, I write on hacker news that they were not for sale but held by foreigners as investments. Are you suggesting that, between these two steps, I would conveyance the sale of one of those apartments and thereby determine that it was bought as an investment property by a foreigner? I’m sure that’s not what you mean but I don’t get what you are suggesting?
- fatbird 4y ago
  Conveyance is the act of transferring ownership, done by real estate lawyers. If you, as a foreign investor, bought before this law came in, then when you tried to sell it, your identity as a foreign investor could be noted, triggering a check of when you purchased it with respect to this law. but the point here isn't to look around and find all the foreign investor owned properties. It's that investments are bought and sold, and getting into that step is sufficient to carry out action. In this case, the foreign investor would have to sell to someone who's a Canadian citizen, which returns housing stock to being locally owned. Something that's not been brought up much in this discussion is that foreign real estate investment is a diversification tactic: they're buying to get money into a different market than the rest of their wealth. That's why it isn't Canadians driving most of this. Foreign real estate is primarily a safe offshore hedge.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    Sorry, I don’t understand the relevance of this to the question above. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Let me try to rephrase that question: Above, 'PragmaticPulp wrote that: > I visited a friend who lived in a high rise and barely saw anyone else come and go from the building the entire week I was there. From the windows we could see into other nearby high rises, most of which were empty. Empty not because they were for sale, but because they had been purchased as investment vehicles by foreign investors who had no intention of ever living there. And my question is how they knew that those apartments were empty because they were owned by some foreign investor (who presumably also wasn’t interested in making money on rent)? I don’t understand how rules about conveyancing answer that question.
- deleted 4y ago
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dan-robertson 4y ago

Suppose I’m in the position of the person in comment I replied to above: I look out of my window and see some empty apartments. Some time later, I write on hacker news that they were not for sale but held by foreigners as investments. Are you suggesting that, between these two steps, I would conveyance the sale of one of those apartments and thereby determine that it was bought as an investment property by a foreigner? I’m sure that’s not what you mean but I don’t get what you are suggesting?

fatbird 4y ago
Conveyance is the act of transferring ownership, done by real estate lawyers. If you, as a foreign investor, bought before this law came in, then when you tried to sell it, your identity as a foreign investor could be noted, triggering a check of when you purchased it with respect to this law. but the point here isn't to look around and find all the foreign investor owned properties. It's that investments are bought and sold, and getting into that step is sufficient to carry out action. In this case, the foreign investor would have to sell to someone who's a Canadian citizen, which returns housing stock to being locally owned. Something that's not been brought up much in this discussion is that foreign real estate investment is a diversification tactic: they're buying to get money into a different market than the rest of their wealth. That's why it isn't Canadians driving most of this. Foreign real estate is primarily a safe offshore hedge.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  Sorry, I don’t understand the relevance of this to the question above. Maybe I wasn’t clear. Let me try to rephrase that question: Above, 'PragmaticPulp wrote that: > I visited a friend who lived in a high rise and barely saw anyone else come and go from the building the entire week I was there. From the windows we could see into other nearby high rises, most of which were empty. Empty not because they were for sale, but because they had been purchased as investment vehicles by foreign investors who had no intention of ever living there. And my question is how they knew that those apartments were empty because they were owned by some foreign investor (who presumably also wasn’t interested in making money on rent)? I don’t understand how rules about conveyancing answer that question.
deleted 4y ago
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