New information required by the Government of Quebec for registration in the Land Register

There has been a significant increase in real estate acquisitions by foreign buyers in recent years. This enthusiasm for the Canadian market helped increase selling prices mainly in Vancouver and Toronto. In response to this rapid real estate inflation, the governments of Ontario and British Columbia have imposed new anti-speculation taxes to curb the phenomenon.

For its part, the Government of Quebec used new tools to better document and analyze the extent of this trend on its territory. It is with this in mind that the Règlement sur le formulaire de présentation de la réquisition d’inscription d’un transfert immobilier will come into force on October 1, 2020.

Your obligations in this regard

This new regulation will impose an obligation to provide more information about buyers and sellers when registering a residential or commercial property transfer. Therefore, licensees may be solicited by notaries and lawyers to collaborate on this new requirement. Indeed, additional registrations will have to be performed by legal experts during the transfer of ownership, which could result in additional costs for the parties.

The requested information will vary depending on the party (natural person, legal person, trust, general partnership, or limited partnership) and the nature of the transaction. The main information is:

• The amount of the consideration;
• The citizenship of the parties (or the place of incorporation for legal persons);
• The intention of the natural person who acquires an immovable or a member of his or her family to occupy this immovable (or a dwelling in it) as a principal residence.

The required information will now have to be entered on the formulaire de présentation d’une réquisition d’inscription d’un transfert immobilier au Registre foncier.¹ Therefore, it will not be possible to register a deed in the Land Register if one of the parties does not provide the information required by the Regulation, with a few exceptions. However, this information must not be included in the deed as such. Please note that it is not the responsibility of licensees to complete this form. However, brokers will be responsible for informing their clients of this new requirement and its impacts.

At this time, the OACIQ does not intend to make any changes to its forms to reflect the new  requisition.  Should the situation change, licensees will be informed in a timely fashion.

¹ An optional form has been designed to help legal professionals collect this information from their clients. It can be viewed at the following address:http://www.finances.gouv.qc.ca/documents/Autres/fr/AUTFR_DeclarationsCedant_Cessionnaire.pdf