Emerald Park Condos (Bazis International, Plaza, Metropia) - Real Estate

[amnesiajune]

Oh and keep in mind Toronto has this "Property Tax Rebate for Vacant Commercial and Industrial Buildings"

The city is working on getting rid of it.

But there are short-term vs long-term Federal Capital Gains Tax to be paid on real estate profit for properties held less than 2 years

There's no such thing as "short term" or "long term" capital gains tax. For a corporation, profits are profits and get taxed as profits regardless of how they're made, and the owner plays the same capital gains tax rate when the corporation is sold/dissolved regardless of what the business does. If the property is owned by a person (WonMak Inc. doesn't sound like a person), then the property is taxed as a sole proprietor business (i.e. self-employment income taxes) if it's held for less than one year. If the property is owned for more than 365 days, then it pays a lower tax rate since it's taxed as capital gains (without corporate taxes applied beforehand), but again, that doesn't apply to properties owned by a corporation.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

I'm not a tax expert. But I see a lot of residential properties in NorthYorkCentre rebuilt as McMansions or just investment properties by professional real estate investor/builder types,... and holding it for the full 2 years is very important for them. It's either on the back end like I mentioned before where they move into a brand new McMansion for 6 months (usually the more experienced Builders),..... or on front end they're rent out the post-war bungalow for a year as they get CityPlanning, CommitteeOfAdjustment, OMB approvals for redevelopment.

But there's something funny going on with this WonMak Inc holding the LCBO unit at EmeraldPark. I've traced the WonMak Inc to a regular condo unit in NorthYorkCentre (I've blanked out the unit number for privacy reasons),.... a condo unit owned by a 30's something young professional guy with a wife and kid,.... and I'm like huh? In today's market, how much is that LCBO - unit really worth? Each of the Yonge frontage stores are probably worth about $1mil,.... there's basically 10 of them,... and the 2nd floor LCBO - unit space is almost twice as big as all 10 of those first floor Yonge frontage stores,..... but even if the LCBO - retail unit is worth $10 million,... or even $5 million,.... nothing makes sense,.... It's like seeing those Students at EmeraldPark driving around in those new Porsche, McLaren and Lamborghini,..... nothing make sense at EmeraldPark!

 

[Bill123]

Yes its like a whole other world here

 

[amnesiajune]

But I see a lot of residential properties in NorthYorkCentre rebuilt as McMansions or just investment properties by professional real estate investor/builder types,... and holding it for the full 2 years is very important for them.

There are definitely some advantages of holding a property as an individual for one full year, but not for two. But there are also disadvantages - most notably, you can't split income if you own the property as an individual. If you own it as a corporation, then you can split up the corporate ownership however you want and split the income (as dividends) based on the ownership, which provides some tax advantages, but there's no tax reasons for someone to hold onto property.

It's like seeing those Students at EmeraldPark driving around in those new Porsche, McLaren and Lamborghini,..... nothing make sense at EmeraldPark!

There are only a few of those tbh, and most are seemingly owned by one person (you can tell because of his obnoxious license plate holder). The general impression that I get though is that about half of the units (more in the west tower than the east) are owner-occupied, and nearly all the other units (again, more so in the west tower) are rented out to someone. There don't seem to be many empty apartments.

 

[Bill123]

For anyone else in my situation where the builder did not pay the property tax what you do is you tell this to your lawyer then send him your tax bill and receipt. He/She will sort it out for you. Do not forget that the builder also has to return the HST they charged as well as any overestimated tax.

 

[Greenzone]

Glad to find this forum. Glad to know I am not the only one complaining. Glad to find out why TTC is closed again. I am happy with my unit but the management here completely stinks. They are nice people, they just take forever to get anything done; it seemed strange how all of them seemed like receptionists with no power just relaying the words from the above but now I know why. Jonathan Gold. Saw him the other day cursing out loud in the hallway which looked so unprofessional and incompetent and oh I see. that was the project manager. I am not surprised why things are so messed up around here. Ha.ha.

By the way Bill123, I am not following what you are saying. I occupied my unit in 2015 summer and lived as interim condition paying occupancy fees, then like the rest of us, the closing was 2016 Jan and upon closing I paid about $2300 as my share of the property tax. (full amount approx $2900). The 2016 tax amount is again approx $2900, no increase. I dont see what is the issue here, could you please elaborate? Numbers arent my best friends.

 

[Bill123]

I have a commercial unit.

Okay so we occupied our unit September 2015 but we did not yet do a final closing so every month we had to pay monthly occupancy fees. One part of this monthly fee was estimated property tax. Since the building was not registered yet the units could not be assessed for tax so the builder estimated it for you. They were pretty good at this, they only overestimated mine by $20. Since this occupancy fee from a legal perspective was regarded as a form of rent (credits to AmnesiaJune), HST had to be charged on it. So we kept paying this fee from September 2015 to May 2016 when final closing finally occurred. During final closing we had to pay the builder the rest of the years (2016) property taxes in a lump sum. I thought everything was smooth and all but I get a tax bill in December of around $6400 dollars. Since the payment due date was in 2017 we thought this was our 2017 taxes because our lawyer says the builder was going to pay 2016 property taxes for us. Then just last week we get an interim bill for an additional $6400 dollars of tax payment (paid through 6 installments). I was like what? I just paid our property taxes why do I have to do it again? I call the city and the city says the builder did not pay our 2016 tax bill so we talk to our Lawyer who told us to speak to the builder but the builder ignored us so we now have to talk through the lawyer who will handle it all.

Now my most recent worry is what if Bazis simply has no money? The doors down here and wall paint which should be covered by warranty have not been fixed for months. No way would Bazis suicide their public image over mishandling this one project when they have 4-5 more developments in the works. They perhaps may be over-leveraged.

 

[BucketOfBolts]

Welcome aboard the forum, Greenzone!

Jonathan Gold. Saw him the other day cursing out loud in the hallway which looked so unprofessional and incompetent and oh I see. that was the project manager. I am not surprised why things are so messed up around here. Ha.ha.

Man - that's crazy. But why am I not surprised! :-/

 

[aiekon]

Okay guys so I've done some research and thankfully there's another entry on here about this:

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-tax-out-of-occupancy-fee-any-examples.13659/

Apparently you have to go after the developer for these fees and they do tend to give it back to you. I hope Bazis pays up.

I don't live in the building but this is also what happened to me when I took occupancy of my condo unit elsewhere.

I had to send the developer a copy of my tax bills since I prepaid the estimated 2016 taxes and the first 6 months of 2017 upon closing. The developer didn't use this to pay the city, and so I had to go after them to give me back the amounts I prepaid. I wonder how often this happens and if new owners are blindly paying property taxes that they shouldn't be paying for..

 

[Bill123]

Something really fishy is going on with my property tax. We finally got news about getting our money back so we went to the Bazis office to pick up a cheque. Well they handed it to us and it was short 3k! We immediately declined it and asked for Veronika who conveniently was not at the office.

We then emailed them about it but they said they only return the portion paid from final closing and not from occupancy and that the taxes from occupancy were paid by the Condo Corporation. However when we call the city, the city still says that they did not receive any tax from anyone.

I've just about had it with these clowns. I've been waiting close to 2 months now for a proper refund and now they are ignoring me again. I'm going to look into a class-action lawsuit next week so if anyone is looking to get on board feel free to message me.

Note: There is a similar case at Emerald City to the East of EP. They started one in 2014 and it has still not resolved... I've contacted the two law firms with regard to information but honestly I do not think the law is on our side.

I've also briefly skimmed the agreement of purchase and sale and I do not see any mention of a subway tunnel in there. This battle might already be lost. It's weird how Bazis went ahead and completed the tunnel even after final closing when it does not say in the APS that they even had to.

 

[John10101]

Something really fishy is going on with my property tax. We finally got news about getting our money back so we went to the Bazis office to pick up a cheque. Well they handed it to us and it was short 3k! We immediately declined it and asked for Veronika who conveniently was not at the office.

We then emailed them about it but they said they only return the portion paid from final closing and not from occupancy and that the taxes from occupancy were paid by the Condo Corporation. However when we call the city, the city still says that they did not receive any tax from anyone.

I've just about had it with these clowns. I've been waiting close to 2 months now for a proper refund and now they are ignoring me again. I'm going to look into a class-action lawsuit next week so if anyone is looking to get on board feel free to message me.

Note: There is a similar case at Emerald City to the East of EP. They started one in 2014 and it has still not resolved... I've contacted the two law firms with regard to information but honestly I do not think the law is on our side.

I've also briefly skimmed the agreement of purchase and sale and I do not see any mention of a subway tunnel in there. This battle might already be lost. It's weird how Bazis went ahead and completed the tunnel even after final closing when it does not say in the APS that they even had to.

Sorry, it's my first time buying a new condo. Are we getting the 24k listed on the CRA letter ? Is it the builder who gets it or us ?

 

[Bill123]

Sorry, it's my first time buying a new condo. Are we getting the 24k listed on the CRA letter ? Is it the builder who gets it or us ?

I am not sure what you mean. I think you mean the HST? You do not get the HST back.

In my particular situation I was charged property tax twice for the year of 2016.

 

[John10101]

I am not sure what you mean. I think you mean the HST? You do not get the HST back.

In my particular situation I was charged property tax twice for the year of 2016.

Haha I got super excited for a second there.
Is it the builder that gets the HST rebate then ?

 

[Bill123]

In our case it was deferred so we didnt pay it at all.

 

[Bill123]

Hold on, if you paid it then i think there is a rebate. ask your accountant.