Grands Palais – Court of Quebec finds that consideration for parking spots was part of the consideration for (condo) residential complexes for new housing rebate purposes

The Quebec new housing rebate is essentially the same as the ETA equivalent, except that entitlement to it is lost at a lower dollar level of total consideration for the “residential complex” that is purchased. Croteau, J.C.Q. found that the consideration paid by purchasers for new condo units in a complex also included the $25,000 they paid for an underground parking spot. In particular, she found that the parking spot was “attributable to the [condo] unit and … reasonably necessary for the use and enjoyment of the unit,” stating:

The location of the various high-rise residential buildings and the advantages that indoor parking spaces can provide led 99.44% of purchasers to express their intention to acquire at least one parking space at the same time as their residential unit.

[A]lthough they constitute different cadastral lots … the interdependence and interconnection of the parking spaces to the residential units are such that they could not be considered, for the purposes of establishing the amount of the Rebate to which the purchasers were entitled, as separate components.

Accordingly, for 93 of the purchases, the total consideration exceeded the dollar threshold, after taking the extra $25,000 into account.

Like ETA s. 254(6), the builder under the QSTA is not liable for the denied rebate (which has almost invariably been assigned to the builder in larger projects) except where it “knows or ought to know” that the individual purchaser is not eligible for the rebate. In finding that the builder could not escape liability on this ground, Croteau, J.C.Q. found that although the rebate form itself did not explain the point at all well, the builder should have been able to ascertain the CRA/ARQ position on the rebate in various published Bulletins.

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Grands Palais du nouveau Saint-Laurent Inc. v. Agence du revenu du Québec, 2020 QCCQ 281 under ETA s. 123(1) – residential complex – (b).