Vancouver Wields C$10,000-a-Day Fine in Crackdown on Empty Homes

Want to keep your million-dollar luxury pad in Vancouver empty? Get ready to pay C$10,000 ($7,450) annually in extra taxes. Lie about it? That’ll be C$10,000 a day in fines. 

Canada’s most-expensive property market, suffering from a near-zero supply of rental homes, announced the details of a new tax aimed at prodding absentee landlords into making their properties available for lease. The empty-home tax will take effect by Jan. 1 and will be calculated at 1 percent of the property’s assessed value, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson told reporters at City Hall.  

“Vancouver is in a rental-housing crisis,” Robertson said. “The city won’t sit on the sidelines while over 20,000 empty and under-occupied properties hold back homes from renters.”

DYI Comments:  Off the top of my head I'm not sure what to make of this other than the obvious heavy hand of government interfering and intervening in their rental market.  Additional building is required but harsh zoning laws in Vancouver has slowed that enormously.  With sky high rents there is huge pent up demand to build.  Looks like typical government mismanagement who are placating existing homeowners who know that if they allow additional building their resale prices will drop.

DYI