by LAWPRO

The recent changes to the Land Transfer Tax and the new Non-Resident Speculation Tax (NRST) are mandatory starting today: May 8, 2017. To help real estate lawyers take steps to comply with these changes, LAWPRO has assembled a list of answers to the questions we are hearing most frequently (FAQs) from Ontario lawyers on our new Always up-to-date LTT and NRST Frequently Asked Questions webpage.

We are maintaining an ongoing and helpful dialogue with Ministry of Finance officials and other stakeholders, and we will update this page on an ongoing basis as we receive new information or clarifications to outstanding questions. To help you identify new information, a last updated date will appear at the top of the page, and recent updates will be highlighted.

If you are looking for an overview of the LTT and NRST changes, the Bulletin on the Non-Resident Speculation Tax in the Ministry of Finance’s website is a good starting point. The Prescribed Information for the Purposes of Section 5.0.1 Form page on the Ministry’s website has detailed information on the PIPS5 Form. See this Teraview Newsletter (dated April 13, 2017) for more information on how to login to Teranet eXpress and access the PIPS5 Form.

Risk management advice

LAWPRO encourages Ontario lawyers to carefully review the information released by the Ministry of Finance and Teranet on the changes to the LTT and the new NRST. Lawyers may face some challenges in implementing these changes into the handling of a file, in particular, trying to take all appropriate steps to comply with legislation that hasn’t even been released in draft form yet. As you will see in the FAQs, there are some scenarios where it is not clear what the legislation will require based on the information released by the Ministry of Finance thus far. Lawyers who find themselves facing questions on what they should do to comply with the LTT and NRST changes are encouraged to seek direction from the Ministry of Finance at the contact noted on our LTT/NRST FAQs page.

As it will have the most current information, please visit our Always up-to-date LTT and NRST Frequently Asked Questions page regularly. We will not be sending Alerts or Webzine updates when we add new information to the FAQs page.

Categories: Alerts