Did you know that if you have more than one “separate residence” on your property – for example a laneway or coach house in addition to your main house – you may qualify for some or all of the BC Home Owner Grant to reduce your property taxes, even if your property is valued at more than $1,600,000?
So if your property is valued at, say, $2.5 million and you have a laneway house you can “partition” the value of the property. Because you have 2 residences, for the purposes of grant calculations you divide the assessed value by 2, giving a partitioned value of $1,250,000 – well below the threshold limit for the grant. In this example you would be eligible for the entire $570 property tax reduction.
This is a provincial government program, so it applies to all municipalities in the province. You can web search “BC Home Owners grant partitioning” or get BC Government form FIN 91 for the details of how to partition and file.
Unfortunately this bonus does not apply if your “separate residence” is a suite in your principal residence. But the good news is – if you do qualify, it can be retroactively applied to the previous year’s taxes.