Ottawa Needs to Fix Foreign Homebuyer Ban

Mark Lewis spoke with the Financial Post on the Canadian government's Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act and its impact on the commercial real estate industry. The Post reports that:

"Law firms have detailed the surprising expansion of the regulations. The legal team at Bennett Jones highlighted the obvious glitches, including the provision that foreign investor control occurs when “direct or indirect ownership of shares or ownership interests of a corporation or entity represents three per cent or more of the value of the equity in it, or carries three per cent or more of its voting rights.” Another point raised by the Bennett Jones team is that such property investment regulation “has typically (and constitutionally) been the domain of the provinces.”"

More details are available in a previous Bennett Jones blog.