On April 13, 2017 the Ministry of Finance announced supplemental Land Transfer Tax reporting requirements.
Effective April 24, 2017, information on the purchasers and property being conveyed must be filed through a separate report through Teranet eXpress, separate from the Land Transfer Tax affidavit that forms part of the electronic or paper registration.
These changes were introduced by the Ministry of Finance pursuant to amendments to the Land Transfer Tax Act. The Land Transfer Tax Act was recently amended to allow the Ministry of Finance to require further information from persons who are required to make a statement or affidavit regarding Land Transfer Tax.
The wording of the amended section 5.01.1 of the Land Transfer Tax Act is as follows:
"Every person required by section 5 to make a statement or affidavit or to deliver a return shall provide the Minister with such additional information as may be prescribed about the transferee and the conveyance, or about the person who acquires a beneficial interest in land and the disposition, and shall provide the information in the form and manner approved by the Minister."
The newly-required information will include (but may not be limited to):
- whether the home is intended to be occupied by the person who purchases or acquires the land, or their family member(s), as their principal residence;
- the type of dwelling (detached, semi‑detached, condominiums, cottages, etc.);
- whether the property, in part or in whole, is intended to be leased out;
- (if the person who purchases or acquires the land is an individual) residency, citizenship and permanent resident status;
- (if the purchasers are corporations) information about incorporation, ownership and control; and
- (if the person who purchases or acquires the land is acting as a trustee, nominee or in a similar capacity) information about beneficial owners.
At time of writing, the electronic form through Teranet eXpress was not yet available.
Reporting of this information is separate from the Land Transfer Tax affidavit that forms part of the electronic or paper registration. For registrations in e-reg, the following reporting procedure has been outlined by the Ministry of Finance:
- Sign in to Teranet eXpress online (note that this login is separate from the login for Teraview, and may require the creation of a separate login ID and password);
- Enter the required information into the form in Teranet eXpress;
- Press “Submit” at the end of the form;
- Correct any issues with the form if prompted by the system;
- After submission of the form, note the Confirmation Number generated by Teranet eXpress. You will need this Confirmation Number to register your transaction;
- Sign in to Teraview (the usual software where you register transactions);
- Select the applicable statement from the following three choices:
- “The information prescribed for the purposes of section 5.0.1 of the Land Transfer Tax Act is required to be provided for this conveyance. The information has been provided as confirmed by CONFIRMATION NUMBER.”
- For this selection, you must enter the Confirmation Number generated by Teranet eXpress before you can sign or register.
- “The information prescribed for the purposes of section 5.0.1 of the Land Transfer Tax Act is required to be provided for this conveyance. The information cannot be provided electronically prior to the time of registration, but will be provided in paper form and submitted directly to the Ministry of Finance: REASON FOR DELAY.”
- For this selection, the reason for delay must be entered.
- Potential reasons include but are not limited to:
- Access to Teranet eXpress is unavailable;
- The electronic form cannot accommodate the required information;
- Additional documents and information must be attached to the form.
- “The information prescribed for the purposes of section 5.0.1 of the Land Transfer Tax Act is not required to be provided for this conveyance.”
- For this selection, no Confirmation Number is required.
- Once the above steps have been completed, continue with your signing and registration as usual.
Note that any signed work-in-progress documents that were signed prior to April 24, 2017 will need to be re-signed after selecting one of the three statements in Teraview.
Separate reporting by a prescribed form will be required for paper (Registry) registration or unregistered dispositions of beneficial interests in land. At time of writing, the prescribed paper form was not available to the authors.
Further details regarding the form and when it is required can be found at http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/tax/ltt/prescribedinfo.html on the Ministry of Finance website.
We have attempted to obtain a copy of the form but as at the date of the submission of this article it is not yet available.
We will endeavour to post additional information on the OBA Real Property Section website at as it becomes available.
Once the prescribed electronic and paper forms are available, we hope to provide a model precedent form for collecting this information from purchaser clients, ensuring the requisite disclosure is duly authorized by them, and that the accuracy of the information is duly certified to the submitter.