Rebate(s)

Who is eligible for pre-construction Rebates?

1. A purchaser who entered into a purchase and sale agreement directly with the developer.
2. A purchaser who purchased a property through an Assignment Sale.

2.1    An Assignment is a legal sales transaction whereby the Original Purchaser (the “Assignor”) of a property sells, and thereby transfers, their interest and obligations under the original contract to a new Purchaser (the “Assignee”). This assignment takes place during or before interim occupancy.

Who is NOT eligible for pre-construction Rebates?

1. RESALE properties are NOT eligible for any Rebates.

What is a rebate and why is it applicable to the purchase of my condo or freehold property? 

First let me start by stating…All Rebates are TAX FREE and are eligible to receive interest on all funds outstanding.

When individuals walked into a presentation center in 2003 and onwards to purchase a preconstruction property, the time from signing the purchase and sale agreement to the time of delivery of the property spans 3+years. A lot can change in this time and it has, if you recall in 2005-2006 Canada had a budget surplus, which resulted in new legislation, and if you recall the government had such a surplus that we Canadian citizens under a specific income level received a credit of approx. $300. Not only did they issue cheques to individuals but they implemented new legislation to address preconstruction properties purchased.  This was there opportunity to implement the rebate program!  The rebates where never advertised nor did the government make the general public aware of these rebates! However one can argue that they did advertise the rebate program as it was written into legislation and one could have read the legislation if they knew about it. 

I am always asked to explain why the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments are offering rebate programs with stringent regulations along with legislative laws rules and regulations to back them up, that must be adhered to in order to claim back or get rebates which belongs to the customer in the first place. Best of all these Federal and Provincial rebates expire within two years from final closing.

The government implemented a federal and provincial rebate program whereby statistically fewer than 10% of rebates are actually claimed and recovered.  However from speaking with clients and unable to receive any statistics from the government I believe that the recovery of these rebates is far very low.  This should not come as a surprise in that they are the primary beneficiary of these unclaimed rebates.  Using the rebate model and principles, results in hundreds of millions of dollars being unclaimed and expired!  What is the government doing with all the unclaimed rebate money?

Ironically some of the individuals who are entitled to these rebates and many, whom are not entitled but lay claim to expertise, feel that the service of getting back these funds by a professional  is a scam.  The fear of the unknown, ignorance, embarrassment but most likely is that misery loves company and some people would prefer that if they don’t know how to collect it themselves than others should not collect.  The most amazing part  these  skeptics whom believe that if they were entitled to a rebate that it would have been given to them already by the government or that the lawyers or developers would have already helped them out on this.  They don’t understand why their accountant would have not picked this up.  Maybe the government should also be giving us all potential tax breaks on our federal taxes too.  Why would they even need an accountant?  Sounds like they have it all figured out.  They live in a dream world, if life were like that we wouldn’t need a visa!

So who do we blame? 

·         The Developer for implementing it into their accounting structure?

·         The Lawyer for not informing us and not knowing how to get these rebates back?

·         The Accountant for not recognizing or not knowing the process?

·         Our Agent for not explaining the process?

·         The government for coming up with this complex situation of taking and then giving back providing you know how to apply through all of their rules and regulations and time constraints? The government is the primary beneficiary of all unclaimed rebates, totaling over a hundred million dollars.

The answer is you!  There is legislation written and the government specifically states that you are 100% responsible for the understanding, being made aware of, and all aspects to the rebate programs and nobody else