There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties for condo own­ers to reap the ben­e­fits of the home ren­o­va­tion tax credit

Adri­enne Brown – Yourhome​.ca

If the term “Home Ren­o­va­tion Tax Credit” brings to mind images of detached houses in the sub­urbs and not units in sky-high build­ings, you’re not alone. Many condo own­ers are pay­ing lit­tle atten­tion to the credit when they could be reap­ing the benefits.

In fact, there are many oppor­tu­ni­ties for condo own­ers to claim the credit, includ­ing some out­side of their own units.

Condo own­ers can claim a por­tion of improve­ments made to their build­ing between Jan. 27, 2009 and Feb. 1, 2010, as long as they were at least par­tially respon­si­ble for pay­ing for the upgrades.

Here’s how it works:

Assum­ing each condo owner pays a monthly fee to a condo cor­po­ra­tion, repairs or ren­o­va­tions com­pleted and paid for with that money should count toward the HRTC. The condo cor­po­ra­tion is sim­ply pay­ing for these goods and ser­vices on behalf of all of the unit owners.

Condo cor­po­ra­tions are unable to claim the credit because it is avail­able only to indi­vid­u­als, so it’s up to each per­son to claim his or her portion.

There­fore, on their 2009 taxes, condo own­ers can claim the credit for ren­o­va­tions to their own unit – sim­i­lar to what would be done in a detached home, for exam­ple – as well as their share of any ren­o­va­tions to com­mon areas paid for by the condo corporation.

This could include any­thing from new win­dows installed in your build­ing to a redesigned lobby area or improved landscaping.

Add these shared costs with ren­o­va­tions you may have done to your indi­vid­ual unit (bath­room or kitchen upgrades, new fix­tures, paint­ing) and you could sig­nif­i­cantly increase your credit.

Canada Rev­enue Agency guide­lines for condo own­ers indi­cate that improve­ments made to com­mon areas will qual­ify if:

– You own your unit. Renters are out of luck, even if they pay sim­i­lar monthly fees.

– “The expenses would be eli­gi­ble expenses if the com­mon areas were treated as an eli­gi­ble dwelling”. If new fur­ni­ture wouldn’t count in a detached home, it won’t count in a condo either.

– Your condo cor­po­ra­tion has noti­fied you of your share of the expenses.

As a reminder, the tax credit applies to ren­o­va­tion costs over $1,000 and under $10,000, so if you spent a few hun­dred dol­lars on your own unit and the condo cor­po­ra­tion spent a few hun­dred more on your behalf, that may be the dif­fer­ence between get­ting a return or not.

What you’ll need to make the claim:

Since you’re not deal­ing directly with stores or con­trac­tors and won’t receive orig­i­nal receipts or invoices, in order to claim your por­tion of build­ing ren­o­va­tions you need doc­u­men­ta­tion from your condo cor­po­ra­tion. This can be in the form of a let­ter and must be signed.

Most condo cor­po­ra­tions have a set of guide­lines that help them deter­mine the allo­ca­tion of expenses for com­mon areas. It is this doc­u­men­ta­tion that will guide them in estab­lish­ing each condo owner’s con­tri­bu­tions to ren­o­va­tions and there­fore how much peo­ple can claim.

Accord­ing to Canada Rev­enue Agency, the doc­u­men­ta­tion “must clearly iden­tify the type and quan­tity of goods pur­chased or ser­vices pro­vided” and also include the following:

– The cost of the renovations

– Your por­tion of the expenses (exactly how much you are con­sid­ered to have contributed)

– Con­tact infor­ma­tion for the ven­dor or con­trac­tor (includ­ing GST/HST num­ber, if applicable)

– A descrip­tion of the work in question

– The date or dates the work was completed.

If you do not receive doc­u­men­ta­tion for improve­ments to your build­ing, it is worth ask­ing about. It could mean a few more dol­lars in your pocket!

————————————————————————————————————

Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion  -  416−388−1960

————————————————————————————————————

Related posts:

1. Home Ren­o­va­tion Tax Credit Helps Econ­omy and Tax­pay­ers The HRTC is a time-limited, non-refundable tax credit of up…
2. Ren­o­va­tion tax credit unlikely polit­i­cal foot­ball The Home Ren­o­va­tion Tax Credit was pro­posed by the current…
3. Sev­eral ways to claim gov­ern­ment grants Plan­ning on land­scap­ing the yard, ren­o­vat­ing the bath­room or installing…
4. Home Ren­o­va­tion Tax Credit The Bud­get pro­poses a tem­po­rary Home Ren­o­va­tion Tax Credit (HRTC),…
5. Fed­eral Bud­get Helps Home Buy­ers and Own­ers It is always reward­ing when hard work pro­duces results. That’s…