Widow jumps through hoops to exempt dead husband from speculation tax: MLA

COQUITLAM — A B.C. Liberal MLA says one of her constituents has had to jump through a series of bureaucratic hoops to try to get her deceased husband exempted from the province’s speculation tax.

Joan Isaacs, Liberal MLA for Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, said she has been helping a 78-year-old widow who was told she would be on the hook for her husband’s portion of the speculation tax for their condo — even though he died in September — because his name was still on the land-title document.

“That was a lot of anxiety and stress she had to deal with,” said Isaacs.

After receiving the notice last week, the woman called the hotline set up by the government to explain the situation. After talking to at least five agents over two separate calls, she was told she had to pay the tax first, then apply for a rebate.

Panicked, the woman then phoned Isaacs’ office.

“She sounded very frightened … she was unsure as to what her next steps would be,” said Isaacs, whose office helped the woman through the process of how to remove her husband’s name from the title, which requires hiring a lawyer or notary.

The woman later learned that she qualified for an exemption, which stipulates that if an owner of a property dies, all other owners are exempt from the tax in the year of death and the following calendar year.

“It was a long, over-a-few-days process,” Isaacs said. “She didn’t sleep. There’s a lot of anxiety.”

The woman told her that she and other friends felt like “they were guilty for having a home,” even though they weren’t speculators.

The woman confirmed the story with Postmedia News, but didn’t want to go on the record.

The widow said she also contacted the office of NDP house leader Mike Farnworth, MLA for Port Coquitlam. One staff member there referred her, puzzlingly, to Service Canada, she said.

It was another staffer, in another phone conversation, who told her about the exemption for a deceased owner.

The widow is still waiting to find out how to apply for the exemption given she doesn’t have access to a computer. She received a phone call from the government Tuesday telling her someone will be in touch with her next week.

When asked for comment, the Finance Ministry said the speculation and vacancy tax is designed to take into account a variety of circumstances and challenges, including the recent death of an owner. Speaking broadly, a property that was a principal residence in 2018 will “generally” be exempt from the tax, it said.

With speculation- and-vacancy-tax notices set to arrive at 1.6 million households in the capital region, Nanaimo, Metro Vancouver (excluding Bowen Island and Lions Bay), Kelowna, Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack, Isaacs estimated that there are likely “hundreds” of people whose spouse has died but whose name is still on land-title documents.

Of the 1.6 million households that have to file a declaration by March 31, an estimated 32,000 will be subject to the tax, the Finance Ministry has said.