Assignment Sales, Without the Mythology
What the assignee steps into. No land moves on an assignment. The assignee takes the presale contract as written: the original price, the original completion obligations, the disclosure statement and every amendment to it, and whatever the developer reserved to itself. BCFSA lists those reservations plainly: the developer may change the layout including reductions in square footage, may substitute materials, and in some contracts may require a higher price where prices have risen and construction has run past a date set in the contract. One right does not travel with the paper, BCFSA states the seven-day right to cancel does not apply to the new purchaser through the assignment.
Consent belongs to the developer, and refusal is not a breach. Since 16 May 2016 the Real Estate Services Regulation has required every contract of purchase and sale prepared by a licensee to carry two terms: no assignment without the seller's written consent, and the seller is entitled to any profit resulting from an assignment. Alter them and a prescribed Notice to Seller Regarding Assignment Terms must reach the seller separately from the offer. Presale contracts run on the developer's own terms under the Real Estate Development Marketing Act, which may bar assignments, cap them, or allow them on a fee the contract sets. A developer may refuse consent even where you have a willing buyer, and if the assignee cannot complete, the assignor typically remains liable to the developer.
Every strata assignment in the province sits on a register. Assignments of purchase agreements for BC condo and strata lots signed on or after 1 January 2019 must be entered in the Condo and Strata Assignment Integrity Register, kept for the administrator designated under the Property Transfer Tax Act. Before consenting, the developer collects from each party full legal name, date of birth, citizenship, SIN or ITN, residency and contact details, then files the deal: agreement date, strata lot and parcel identifier, consent and effective dates, the assignment fee, the purchase price, the assignment amount and the deposit reimbursement. Filings are quarterly, within 30 days of quarter end, and the Ministry of Finance shares the data with BCFSA and the Canada Revenue Agency. Enforcement is not theoretical: in January 2023 BCFSA penalised a developer and its director $44,000 plus $3,900 in costs for missing thirteen quarterly filing periods. The register covers strata only, which makes a fee-simple presale assignment unregistered rather than unseen.
Property transfer tax is charged on what the assignee paid. For a pre-sold strata unit the Province taxes the total amount paid to acquire the property rather than fair market value at registration, under section 1.4 of the Property Transfer Tax Act, and that total expressly includes upgrades and any premium for assignment. On an arm's length assignment before the strata plan is deposited at the land title office, tax is calculated on the total paid by the assignee, including all additional amounts paid to obtain the right to purchase; a valid written assignment is required. Assign after the plan is deposited and ordinary fair market value rules apply instead. That same total is the figure tested for the first time home buyers' exemption, and a return filed with misleading information to avoid the tax carries a penalty equal to the tax itself.
The profit is business income, and CRA says so in one sentence. On its real estate compliance pages, last updated 4 September 2025, the Agency writes: "You must report any profit from an assignment sale as business income in the tax year in which you assigned your rights." Fully taxable at marginal rates, no half inclusion, no principal residence exemption. The federal anti-flipping rule reinforces it: for dispositions after 2022, a housing unit or a right to acquire one held under 365 consecutive days is flipped property, deemed to produce business income, losses denied. BC's home flipping tax sits above that, treating a presale contract as taxable property acquired the day you pay for and enter it and disposed of the day you receive money from the assignee, each person in the chain running their own 730-day clock, return due within 90 days.
Since 7 May 2022, GST is not arguable. Before that date an individual's assignment could be exempt where the contract had not been entered into primarily to resell the interest. Section 192.1 of the Excise Tax Act, enacted in the 2022 budget bill, applies to any assignment supply made after 6 May 2022 and makes all assignment sales of newly constructed or substantially renovated residential housing taxable, 5% GST in British Columbia, collected and remitted by the assignor. The deposit carve-out is a drafting condition, not a default: the amount reimbursing the deposit paid to the builder drops out of the consideration only where the assignment agreement says in writing that part of the consideration is that reimbursement. Say nothing and the whole amount is taxed. The developer's assignment fee is itself generally subject to GST, and where there are two builders the assignee pays GST to the developer on the unit and to the assignor on the interest. With only one new housing rebate allowed per house, CRA points assignees to claiming directly rather than through the developer so both amounts count.
The rebate a 2024 contract quietly destroys. The First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate announced 27 May 2025 returns 100% of the GST on a new home valued up to $1 million, phasing out linearly to $1.5 million, to a maximum of $50,000. Its assignment limitation is impossible to cure: where a first-time buyer assumes another purchaser's rights under an agreement with a builder, the rebate is unavailable if that original agreement was entered into before 27 May 2025, and cancelling a pre-27 May agreement to write a fresh one does not rescue it. A Langley presale signed in 2023 or 2024 therefore carries no first-time buyer rebate for whoever takes the assignment, whatever the assignment itself is dated.
How it is priced, and why the lender is the pinch point. The assignee pays the deposit the assignor already advanced to the developer, plus the lift, and pays both in cash well before completion, because until the strata plan is deposited and the transfer registered there is no registrable interest for a mortgage to attach to. At completion the lender advances against its own appraisal of the finished unit, not against what was paid for the paper. BCFSA warns that a lender may appraise below the agreed price, that the buyer may then no longer qualify for adequate financing and must increase the cash payment, and that failing to do so is default and risks the deposit. Property transfer tax and GST are both computed on the higher total, so the lift is charged three times over, to the assignor, to the Province, to the Receiver General, and financed none of them.
Sourced from CRA's real estate compliance guidance of 4 September 2025, GST/HST Notice 323 and info sheet GI-120, section 192.1 of the Excise Tax Act, Finance Canada's First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate announcement of 27 May 2025, the Province's property transfer tax pages of 5 May 2026, the assignment register pages of 13 November 2025 and 15 June 2026, the home flipping tax presale page of 8 May 2026, and BCFSA's consumer guides on assignments and presales; all verified 25 August 2026. This report describes the framework and informs; it is not tax, legal or accounting advice, and every assignment turns on the wording of one contract and one set of dates, which is why an accountant belongs at the table before the assignment agreement is signed, not after. Want the deposit, the lift, the GST and the property transfer tax on your assignment set out as one number before you sign?