Inside the Industry Efforts to Amend the Foreign Buyer Ban

, Partners at Dentons Canada LLP with hands-on experience working with a variety of real estate clients, tell STOREYS that they largely heard the same gripes with the regulations, including the rollout.

As the ramifications of the regulations became clearer, what needed to be changed also came into focus. Numerous industry groups submitted formal feedback to the government.

All the sources STOREYS spoke to say that the government had previously signaled, but not confirmed, that changes were likely coming. Kassian and Jagger, of Dentons Canada LLP, said that it was “widely expected” but that the timing of the announcement may have been a surprise to many, which Savoie and Wilkes both confirmed.

The concern that drew some of the most attention prior to the changes was the 3% foreign control threshold, which has now been upped to 10%. The general consensus regarding this change appears to be that while the development industry would have preferred no threshold at all, they also recognize that 10% is better than 3%, and are content with the overall set of amendments, some of which render the threshold less of an issue.

Asked which of the four changes was the biggest win for the development industry, Lewis, Kassian, Jagger, Savoie, and Wilkes all pointed to the development purposes exemption, which now allows non-Canadian entities to purchase land for the purposes of development, after the original regulations only allowed this for publicly-traded corporations.

Kassian and Jagger say that they aren’t aware of any current specific industry efforts on this front, but that these flaws can be resolved with further amendments, or more guidance from the government. Separately, Lewis said producing more “binding interpretative guidance on which the sector can rely definitely going forward” would be welcome and could also benefit the lending community.

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