Alleged Canada property tax dodge for foreign buyers is described in Vancouver legal action
The unproven claims, which are strongly denied, are made in legal action that followed the demise of a partnership between top Vancouver property agents.
An alleged scheme to allow Vancouver’s mostly Chinese foreign buyers to avoid tax on real estate purchases there has been described in legal action following the disintegration of a business partnership involving some of the Canadian city’s top realtors.
Under the supposed scheme, depicted in a British Columbia Supreme Court pleading, buyers and sellers who were both based overseas would understate the amount being paid for a property and exchange only that portion in BC – thus reducing the property transfer tax – while the remainder of the true price would change hands outside Canada.
If true, such an arrangement would also help buyers of Canadian real estate dodge China’s cash export limits.
The alleged technique is described in a response to a lawsuit, over the collapse of a partnership between Layla Zi Ya Yang and fellow realtors Kathy Wan Jun Xu and Melissa Kam Nong Wu. The trio founded Maxcel Westcoast Realty in 2017 - but Yang and other agents departed the firm in acrimony that is described in the legal action.
Maxcel’s lawyer strongly denied the existence of the alleged scheme. All others involved in the legal action have also denied wrongdoing, and no claims of wrongdoing in the lawsuit, the responses or counterclaims have been proven in court.