Ship Docked

Container Packed

Fri Feb 18th

Our ship - courtesy OOCL

This week has been full of house hunting and taxes!

We have been to look at a couple of houses during the week.  The first a stunningly located property on top of 'the bluff' in Gibsons.   We know the property has been empty for some months as we were tipped off by our lovely letting agent that the previous owner had died and the property was likely to be coming on to the market.  Two bedrooms, in need of extensive work and a leaking indoor plunge pool, stilts supporting half of the house needing repair, it was a 'project'.  Even if you included the classic MG in the picture it was a ridiculous price compared with others we have seen recently.  Needless to say we won't be making an offer for the house.  It will probably be bought by someone and knocked down (a 'tear down' in local parlance) and a new modern property built to replace it.  As we are likely to have other priorities this year, we don't want a big project.  As for the MG, much older than the house but in far better condition .......... tempting!

The second property we'd seen details for last year.  It was above our budget, but had come back on the market at a reduced price at the top of our budget range.  We decided to check it out, a day after they had received their first offer.  It needed no work, had 3,000 sq ft of multilevel decking overlooking one end of Keats Island and the sea, plus it had half an acre of adjoining land that could be developed.  Having told our realtor we'd be making an offer, we were told the next morning the first offer had been accepted, even though they had not been planning to make a decision until the following day.  Grrrrr.  Such is the local market.

OK shipped docked maybe a bit of an overstatement, but the OOCL Montreal is doing the nautical equivalent of treading water just off the Isle of White, waiting for a berth in Southampton.  I guess Eunice might have something to do with it.  There is an old aviation expression to do with the weather that goes along the lines of, 'it is better to be on the ground looking up wishing you could be up there, than up there looking down wishing you were down there.  I can't but help feel that if I was on a ship in the channel at the moment I'd be thinking along similar lines.

It looks as though much of the UK is having a bit of a tough time with the weather and hope UK friends and family are fairing OK.

We learned our shipping container has been packed, paperwork is prepared and ready to be loaded once the ship has docked and unloaded.  A week to turn it around in the UK, eight days across the Atlantic to Montreal, a week to get the container out of the port and then on the train across Canada, to Delta on the outskirts of Vancouver.  The train tracks disrupted in the Fall storms have now been repaired.  We hope 

The run home - downhill!

there is not a significant 'trucking' requirement at this end other than getting it delivered by the local removal company!  We have to go over to Delta with our paperwork to encourage Border Control to allow it in without duty!  It also probably means we are going to have to get our approved long stay Super Visas stamped at a Canadian border entry point beforehand.  

The Eco stop/start on my Discovery Sport has stopped working, again!  Rather than take it across to Vancouver to be checked I booked it in to a local service centre in Gibsons on Tuesday to check out.  From there, although I'd already done a couple of runs last weekend, I thought it would be good to run back to house a nice downhill 6k.  It is deceptive when you are driving round, unless you are on an obvious hill things feel flat.  Not so when running.  The first 3k to the top of the bypass above the ferry terminal at Langdale, was all uphill!  Still I felt very virtuous once I'd finished - 21k last week!

In between viewing houses an innocuous letter from Barclays sparked a series of conversations with UK advisors and our  business accountant.  

The bottom line of all this, is that the simplicity of dealing with one tax authority, is about to double.  Our hope that we could remain in the UK tax system and only adopt the Canadian tax system when we had residency, has been dashed.  Even though we are only here as 'visitors' albeit on lengthy visas, the fact that we have rented property, bought cars, joined local clubs may tip us into the CRA clutches.  At the moment, the fact we cannot work here, get a bank account or a local driving licence (and therefore cheaper car insurance), have all of our income come from the UK, we can still be caught by the tax system. 

The tax treaty between the UK and Canada, means UK income and tax, can be offset in Canada, so we'd have to pay the marginal difference as per tax rules.  There is a downside that you should be aware of if you plan to move from the UK to Canada.  Tax-free UK investments that earn dividend  income like SIPP pensions funds, ISA's etc will not be tax free in Canada.  We knew this was the case before we came out, just wanted to put it off for longer.  Local advice is being sought!  Watch this space!

I've made some changes to the blog structure.  At the bottom you'll find some links to local sites if you want to explore more of BC. On the left side there is access to the blog archive if your tempted to go back to the beginning!  Just saying.