BC, economy, Open Topic, renting, supply

Couple denied home for having a daughter

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159 Comments

What?

There’s likely more to this story than simple discrimination, but a Vancouver couple is claiming they were denied a housing coop home because their second child was a girl.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) guideline suggests children of opposite sexes can’t share a bedroom if they are over the age of five, but it’s OK for children of the same sex to do so.

Gottfried and Hurtig believe it should be up to parents to decide when and if children share a room.

“I would describe it as being completely outrageous and appalling and just unbelievable,” Gottfried tells Go Public.

“No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t really wrap my brain around it,” Hurtig says.

The one-income family says money is tight. Getting the unit would have meant their rent would drop from $1,840 to $895 a month.

“It’s discrimination. We get the room if our children are the same sex and we don’t get the room if our children are not the same sex. It’s very, very clear-cut discrimination,” Gottfried said.

Read the full article over at the CBC.

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Sheesh

The situation as presented in the article is false. They were never denied an apartment over the gender of their baby. They had been offered another unit the year before and turned it down because they didn’t like the view. The father called a co-op board member something like 200 times with harassing messages. The co-op’s lawyer advised they not participate in the story but CBC decided to run with it anyway. That’s why they have the weird quotes from someone in Ontario that knows nothing about the co-op’s policies. Unfortunate that they would run something without verifying, I would hope for a higher standard from CBC.

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bullwhip29

Pre-sale condo buyers at cancelled Langara West project contest developer’s offer
http://vancouversun.com/business/local-business/pre-sale-condo-buyers-at-cancelled-langara-west-project-contest-developers-offer

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bullwhip29

TransLink to roll out double-decker bus pilot project this fall
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/translink-to-roll-out-double-decker-bus-pilot-project-this-fall

>>> this will not work as each stop is prolonged by several minutes to allow more passengers to board, unload and jostle for position in the stairwells. so, in effect this will just clog traffic even more than it already is.

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Shut It Down Already

Several extra minutes at each stop? Hardly.

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Abdul Lahazi

You are a transit expert now too? Wow.

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bullwhip29

Fraser Valley homelessness up 75%, report finds
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fraser-valley-homelessness-up-75-report-finds-1.4300764

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paulb

New
159
Price Change
55
Sold
142
TI:10120

http://www.clivestevepaul.com

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dyugle

YEARLY HOUSE TAX.
I want a 2% yearly house tax on a portion of a homes assessed price or, if the home is a principal residence, the lower value of the purchase price or the assessed price. From this amount you may subtract 3 times the current average income, for the area where the residence is located, and thus arrive at the portion that is taxed. Thus, the 2% tax is calculated only on the portion that exceeds 3 times the average income of the neighbourhood where the residence is located. A further reduction in the tax can be claimed by people who file income taxes in B.C. allowing them to deduct up to 100% of their income tax from the yearly house tax.
Any problems with this?

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KickThemOut

Aside from never getting this passed, see how messy up California property tax is….

oh, and the seniors!

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dyugle

Seniors pay no tax.
They bought their housed a long time ago so their purchase price is below 3 times the average income for the area.

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Shut It Down Already

If you want seniors to pay no tax then just set an age cut off rather than trying to estabbish tricky neighbourhood boundaries for the sake of calculating average income (if “average” is even a good measure).

But surely taxes like this are imposed to change behaviour, and the behaviour that could be changed is seniors occupying large houses on their own whilst putting their hand out rather than liquidating them to become self sufficient?

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Owen

Oh right, I missed that part! Exactly the same as Cali, where incumbent boomers get a tax subsidy from young people just starting out, just because they bought first.

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Shut It Down Already

Getting taxed based on your neighbours’ income? Sounds perfectly fair and legal.

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dyugle

You are not taxed on your neighbour’s income. Your taxable amount is reduced based on the average income in the area you live. This is so that in an area that has ridiculously low income but stratospheric housing prices, the tax will increase.

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Shut It Down Already

Right. So as your neighbours’ income changes as does your tax payable.

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Dyugle

The goal of this is to reduce a senior’s tax to zero. You see not benefit in that?

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Shut It Down Already

No, I’m not a senior.

And I’m not counting on the government for anything when I become one.

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YVR

“The goal of this is to reduce a senior’s tax to zero.”

There was a time when most seniors were poor and young people had more money because they were the only ones who could work in the labour intensive workforce. Those times are long gone now. Giving seniors a free ride at the expense of others makes no sense today. Especially the asset rich ones.

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patriotz

“Any problems with this?”

It’s a disincentive for those who live in properties too big for them to downsize, because if they do they will face taxation on the smaller property which they pay much more for today than the larger property years ago.

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goofus ottawais

Hmmm

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Owen

Assuming they can time travel, yes, your analysis of the economic incentives is correct.

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Best place on meth

You had me at 2% yearly house tax.

All properties, no exceptions.

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Owen

Yeah, or even what’s wrong with the BC HAF plan? This idea as described seems unnecessarily complicated, which makes me wonder if it can’t be gamed. Won’t cheats just move into neighbourhoods where they know the average income is high?

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YVR

“Won’t cheats just move into neighbourhoods where they know the average income is high?”

Of course, and then drive those housing prices higher due to a lower tax rate. Any tax increase/decrease is directly reflected in the property price.

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YVR

A 2% surtax which income tax paid can be credited towards and you can carry forward income tax paid up to 20 years including a spouses income tax. If you pay no income tax you pay the full 2% surtax no exceptions. If you paid income tax anytime in the current year or last 20 years you can get a full credit of the income tax paid towards the 2% surtax. As a nice gesture seniors who have paid little or no income tax in the last 20 years can put the surtax plus interest on the properties title like the current property tax scheme.

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Dyugle

Gre

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Dave

The 2% tax is the best idea I’ve heard so far. It puts money back in the pocket of locals where it belongs. If foreigners want to park money here and declare no income, they can pay more in property tax.

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Shut It Down Already

How exactly does taxing a $800K townhouse at a rate of over $1000/month put money back into the pockets of locals?

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Abdul Lahazi

Tax changes, anti-rich rhetoric have already inspired big fish to leave: Manley

https://app.tmxmoney.com/news/cpnews/article?locale=EN&newsid=OGTH1418&mobile=false

Scrooge McDuck has left the building…

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KickThemOut

Right, because the rich has done so many wonderful thing for this city?

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Shut It Down Already

Yes, damn them and the jobs they create.

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Just me

Great jobs are being generated in Vancouver. Gardeners to keep the mansion grounds. Attendant at the local Lambo shop. A modern economy.

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Shut It Down Already

I guess you don’t have a great job, otherwise you’d know they actually exist.

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Dave

There are two types of rich in this country. Rich parking money here and reporting no income and rich that creat businesses and jobs. We’re taxing the wrong type of rich because that’s all Revenue Canada knows how to do. A year ago the problem was that local rich were the only ones who afford to live her. Now they’re leaving too. This is like some kind of giant social experiment.

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Best place on meth

Turdeau will drive out the productive rich and invite the parasite rich from overseas to take their place.

Bonus: Canada ends up gender neutral and meritocracy will be replaced with affirmative action programs, so that jobs will go to those who represent a particular race.

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Shut It Down Already

Worried you can’t compete on merit?

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BubbleTea

Canada has become an Eden for money launderers and tax evaders, allowing many to freeload off of others who can ill afford it. It was disclosed this week that since 2015, the Canada Revenue Agency has identified hundreds of millions in taxes owing in real estate transactions. Yet only three cases nationwide have been referred for criminal prosecution.
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-wont-trudeau-stop-real-estate-scammers/article36351746/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

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Just me

And Trudeau goes around pontificating about the absolute nothing.
Nobody even cares.

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patriotz

“only three cases nationwide have been referred for criminal prosecution.”

It’s hard to prove a criminal case for tax evasion. On the other hard assessing back taxes and seizing assets to pay them is a civil matter, which has a much lower standard of proof. What the government wants is to get the money, not to spend more money prosecuting people and locking them up.

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Just me

Your point? Is civil forfeiture being pursued?

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KickThemOut

Be careful what you wish for…cuz today it might be the so called “criminals”, tomorrow that might just include you!

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patriotz

Tax collection is not civil forfeiture, which is not a tax and is not collected by CRA. CRA assesses and collects taxes on undeclared income all the time. However it cannot release any names unless the taxpayer challenges the assessment in court or criminal charges are filed.

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Just me

So the answer is no? Free no ey for tax readers. Thousands of them.

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Abdul Lahazi

Surrey group fights crackdown on illegal suites, says housing space trumps parking woes:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/clayton-heights-secondary-suites-petition-1.4300875

“The tenants either have to leave or the landlords have to figure out how they’re going to move forward with this,” she said.

“The residents who bought their dreamhomes here, that have their children going to school here, they have to be protected as well.”

“dreamhomes”? in Surrey and living with with tenants. LOL.

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KickThemOut

Well…we know you always love children so much, don’t we?! Especially when it’s a sexual emergency….fucking sickos…turning Canada into a country of child abusers and molesters.

Man who raped child in swimming pool because it was ‘a sexual emergency’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/austria-swimming-pool-rape-theresienbad-vienna-iraqi-refugee-a7473441.html

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KickThemOut

Google buys big piece of HTC in billion-dollar bet on devices

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-htc-1.4299999

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KickThemOut

Home sales expected to fall 5.3 per cent in 2018, 10 per cent in Ont. and B.C.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/home-sales-expected-to-fall-5-3-per-cent-in-2018-10-per-cent-in-ont-and-b-c-1.3591057

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KickThemOut

Toronto-area family on the hook for $37K commission after failed home purchase:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/toronto-area-family-on-the-hook-for-37k-commission-after-failed-home-purchase-1.3599860

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Road Warrior

What does $895 a month debt service………..$2MM or something like that…………..heh. They have no right to whine.

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Doomcouver

“Three companies that operate out of the same building in Surrey …” . I’m going to bet that all three immigration companies are owned by Indians. It’s a cultural norm that many ethnic Indians think it’s morally okay to scam and rip people off.

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Shut It Down Already

Another dumb racist steps forward!

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Abdul Lahazi

Here is a precedent:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro+vancouver+fraud+gang+ordered+icbc/6919125/story.html
The three immigration companies listed have a “director” named Kuldeep Kumar Bansal and I have to wonder if there is a connection with the ICBC fraud scheme from the early 2000s where Burnaby company Bansal & Sons Diesel Automotive is convicted of fraud. These types move in the same circles.

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bullwhip29

B.C. real estate regulator penalizes two New Coast Realty agents
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-real-estate-regulator-penalizes-two-new-coast-realty-agents/article36338872

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Doomcouver

$8,000 and 45 days suspension seems like a slap on the wrist for this scumbag. They need to start stripping people of their license. We’ve got more than enough real estate agents that will take their place.

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Abdul Lahazi

New Coast should be completely shut down. They are flippers and scammers.

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Best place on meth

500 pound bomb dropped on the office at 9 am would be more appropriate.

Locust guts all over the place.

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bullwhip29

It allegedly started out as a way to dodge B.C.’s foreign buyers’ tax, but now a Hong Kong woman is living a relationship nightmare trying to move her ex-boyfriend out of the home she claims she paid for, court documents claim.
https://globalnews.ca/news/3760374/hong-kong-woman-bc-land-title/

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Just me

How many such arrangements do you guys think are out there?
And how many through numbered companies?

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Abdul Lahazi

This woman should be charged with fraud for defrauding the BC Government of the 15% tax and she should have to pay the 15% plus penalties.

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Abdul Lahazi

“a two-storey home with a triple garage, five bathrooms and four bedrooms.” And a single person needs all this space? OR she is just another Azian spekker who is screwing BC citizens out of their 15% tax.

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Just me

Just a pied-a-terre.

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KickThemOut

Maybe she needs 5 hot rods to satisfy her needs….unlike women in your society that are treated as properties, women in UK colonies actually have rights and can live well without being subject to men, and the rich ones have high demands. It’s not a male dominated world anymore.

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Abdul Lahazi

“she needs 5 hot rods to satisfy her needs” Now how did you come up with that? Hmm it sounds almost sexual.

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Road Warrior

Laughed while reading this.

Good for him.

She obviously hates him enough to expose herself to payment of back taxes and fraud charges as well.

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Hyper-mega-Bull

Hyper-mega-Bull
Foreign buyers haven’t been pushed out. They are simply evading the foreign buyer’s tax (aka “phone a friend tax”).

After everything we’ve seen Canadians still don’t get it. Even I didn’t expect this kind of naivety.

Cheating and crooked dealing is their primary nature. We’ve seen countless examples. You people don’t stand a chance. I feel sorry for all of you.

Learn Mandarin.

11 months 29 days ago

http://vancouvercondo.info/2016/09/halt-rally-recap.html

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Hyper-mega-Bull

i’ve said many times that Chinese have no problem putting things in other people’s names and that the foreign buyers tax will be evaded in just this way. canadians have no clue how things in much of the world work. so naive.

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patriotz

” Chinese have no problem putting things in other people’s names ”

Until the other people decide to keep them, as we’ve already seen.

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Doomcouver

If the court cares about the law it will let him keep it. This should be a deterrent for any would-be scammers that want to put their home purchase in someone else’s name to avoid the tax.

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YVR

“Jennie Wu and Johnny Chu began dating in the fall of 2016. Chu, a flight attendant, met Wu in the business section of a flight between Hong Kong and Vancouver.”

A wealthy Hong Konger meets a flight attendant, buys a house 100% in his name a few months after meeting him. Then takes him to court revealing her fraud. Hilarious. If I was him I would sell the house and kick her out. If he is smart he will claim the money to buy the house was a gift.

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Bear Vancouverite

This women will get no sympathy from any locals.

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southseacompany

“Here’s what quantitative un-easing could mean for the housing market”, Housing Wire

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/41353-heres-what-quantitative-un-easing-could-mean-for-the-housing-market

“This quantitative un-easing could have major consequences to the housing market as nearly 40% of the portfolio is made up of mortgage-backed securities that the Federal Reserve started buying in 2009”

“Fannie Mae estimates the un-easing could cause interest rates to eventually move up by 25 to 40 basis points.”

““Remember that the price of a home does not determine if it is affordable for a homebuyer. Rather, how much it costs each month to pay for the mortgage necessary to purchase the home given a down payment determines if it is affordable,””

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Spec

I suspect it will be so slow as to not make much difference. That 25-40 basis points… over 5-10 years? Meaningless IMHO

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southseacompany

“What is the US Federal Reserve doing?”, BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41320675

“The US Federal Reserve has decided to start running down the stock of financial assets it bought in its quantitative easing scheme.”

“The consequence of all that QE is that the Fed now holds about four and a half trillion dollars of assets. Before it started the programme the figure was less than a quarter of that amount.”

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Dave

This is going to affect long rates here in Canada too. I haven’t heard anybody in the media indicate that. But it will:

https://www.canadianmortgagetrends.com/2009/11/americas-impact-on-canadian-interest-rates/

Here’s the math:

Higher Mortgage Rates + GreenDP + Record Construction = Housing Correction

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Doomcouver

A rate shock is coming, and it’s going to be really ugly. A once in a generation debt implosion is cooked into our credit market, and we’re approaching the end-game stage now.

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Best place on meth

+stress test -chinese money = housing crash

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southseacompany

“Why The Government Isn’t Interested In Making Housing Affordable”, Huff Post Australia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/glen-anderson/why-the-government-isnt-interested-in-making-housing-affordable_a_23217171/

“Too many of their voters are getting rich as a result of the property boom.”

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Just me

This is it.
It works for a while. Until it doesn’t.
You can’t generate wealth by government decree, this is just redistribution to home owners.

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Doomcouver

A housing market is the most healthy when house prices roughly track inflation, and is used as shelter. Greed has made people lose sight of what housing is supposed to be for. It’s not supposed to be an investment vehicle, or a commodity to be flipped. Treating housing primarily as an investment is distorting the market. The end-state is massive wealth inequality, and an economy completely dependent on massively overpriced housing.

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KickThemOut

Exactly! This is why housing should be doled out according to needs, not wants or wealth. In fact, all secondary ownership, and corporate ownership should be banned. Government should levy special taxes on houses that is not being utilized property – eg empty mansions with 4 bedrooms and 1 couple with no kids.

Adam Smith called housing a productive assets and landlords rentiers for a reason. We should follow his advice and ban such abominations and distortion from the markets. Only then can people, like the ones on this blog, who truly deserves houses can afford them.

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patriotz

Here is what Adam Smith actually said. You can read more at the link below.

the revenue of the whole body of the people can never be in the smallest degree increased by (a house)

http://vancouvercondo.info/2012/12/a-visit-from-st-adam.html

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KickThemOut

So, property owners who rents and collect money dong nothing are basically rentiers.

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patriotz

Building a house and renting it out is not doing nothing. Smith referred to land owners as rentiers. Note that the land owner and house owner were not necessarily the same party.

“A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.”

https://www.prosper.org.au/about/geoists-in-history/adam-smith-on-the-rentier/

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Just me

Amen to that.

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southseacompany

“Fed to start shrinking assets next month, rate hike seen this year”, Financial Post

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/wrapup-2-fed-keeps-rates-steady-approves-portfolio-cuts-in-october

“The U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but signaled it still expects one more increase by the end of the year despite recent weak inflation readings.”

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southseacompany

“Housing risks ‘could even threaten financial stability’ in Canada: OECD”< Financial Post

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/housing-risks-could-even-threaten-financial-stability-in-canada-oecd

"the OECD report also points to looming vulnerability in the Canadian housing market that could cause growth to shrink faster than expected in the second half of 2017. Rising housing prices and swelling household debt levels in Canada runs the risk of leading to a market correction that would reverberate throughout the economy, the report warned. "

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Doomcouver

It’s kind of hilarious how the dangerous state of our economy’s over-reliance on expensive real estate is mostly only visible to people outside Canada. All the politicians here act like it’s business as usual, and totally ignore the elephant in the room. The potential depth of the coming recession is quite disturbing in my opinion.

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Just me

Oh Canada!

A Malaysian governor and his family are accused in a lawsuit of funneling proceeds of corruption into Canadian real estate, with a Swiss environmental group pressing some of Canada’s biggest financial firms to turn over information on how the money flowed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-19/malaysian-corruption-allegedly-spreads-to-canadian-real-estate

Over the past three decades in government Taib diverted funds from “the massive deforestation of Sarawak and by illegally structuring state commercial activities to benefit him, his family and his related companies,”

No worries! This is called corruption in other countries. By the time the money reaches Canada, we call it foreign investment and lay down red carpets for the generous investors. After all, it would be racist to say no to these investors.

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Doomcouver

I’d be willing to bet files on all of these “investments” landed in FINTRAC’s lap and they did nothing about it.

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KickThemOut

Just more prove the evilness of Communist mainland scum and Asians in general. Thank goodness I know most of the bears on this blog aren’t and can differentiate between the good people from bad.

Remember how a Malaysian RE family is supposed to build social housing on Little Mountain in time for Olympics? Yeah…it’s still a razed flat land, while all the poor families who were uproot are thrown to the streets in the name of more social housing. Somehow, the difficulties they cited didn’t affect their Trump Tower project.

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YVR

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) guideline suggests children of opposite sexes can’t share a bedroom if they are over the age of five, but it’s OK for children of the same sex to do so.

The co-op is following CMHC guidelines which seems reasonable. I have to wonder why CMHC, a mortgage insurance agency, makes such guidelines. First off shouldn’t the BC Ministry of Children make such guidelines and have them applicable to everyone not just co-ops? Second, who is to say which gender these kids are? Maybe they haven’t chosen their gender yet. Isn’t that how it works? Kids choose their gender. With the whole designating washroom by gender controversy you would think we could get away from designating private bedrooms by gender.

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Best place on meth

Co-op applicants should be able to declare their children gender neutral which would solve the bedroom problem instantly.

If they can’t find that third checkbox, just make one.

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Doomcouver

The SJW gender propoganda is beyond ridiculous.

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patriotz

“The co-op is following CMHC guidelines which seems reasonable.”

The co-op isn’t, given the age of the kids in question.

“I have to wonder why CMHC, a mortgage insurance agency, makes such guidelines”

Because they used to be the major source of financing for co-ops.

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