Vancouver Real Estate Blog

Home owners get hit with the end of the Provincial Sales Tax Rebate and the 7% increase charged by HST.

Harmony Sales Tax is no harmony for those that are in the midst of a huge renovation or even worse a replacement of the envelope of their building. With the coming of July 1st 2010 deadline, home owners are starting to realize that their reconstruction work on their leaky condo or for that matter a home or a strata complex that just needed to update their look is now facing an additional 7% on top of the already expensive engineering and building costs. As the new HST looms nearer, the PST rebate that the British Columbia government sponsored for repairs slips under ground and ends all rebates for recouping some costs for home owners.

Some councils and strata complexes are out $10,000 even $100,000's of dollars as they will be paying much more due to the HST and will get significantly less back as a result of the PST rebate ending on June 30th.

$362 million in Leaky Condo Repairs

According to the latest statistics released by the Home Owner Protection Office of British Columbia, between 1998 and 2006, the HPO received 14,184 loan applications under the Homeowners Reconstruction Loan Program for the repair of approximately 750 buildings suffering from water ingress problems. The HPO approved 81% of the loans for a total of $362 million. You can link here for more information on the Reconstruction Loan Program.