The City of Vancouver is offering a little leeway to the thousands of homeowners who haven’t handed in their paperwork.
The city says it will be offering a one-month extension to the more than 7,000 homeowners, which is about four per cent of property owners, who have yet to file a declaration.
In an e-mail to Global News, the city says it doesn’t want property owners to be subject to “unnecessary fines,” so it has pushed the deadline to March 5.
Failure to submit by the new deadline will result in an automatic assumption that the home is vacant and will be subject to the tax, which is one per cent of the assessed home value. Homeowners will also be subject to a $250 penalty for not declaring on time.
A false declaration can result in fines of up to $10,000 a day in addition to the empty home tax.
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Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson urged homeowners to submit their declarations last week as 11 per cent had yet to file them just days before the old Feb. 2 deadline.
In December, city council approved a last-minute property tax bump, resulting in a 4.24 per cent increase for homeowners.
Vancouver has one of the lowest rental vacancy rates and one of the highest rental costs in Canada.
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