Very often we are faced with a situation where a person moves temporarily from one city to another, a property becomes a rental unit or a rental unit becomes principal residence. The question is: does a person have to occupy the property all the time for it to be deemed principal residence, and be it exempt from capital gain tax for the period the owner does not ordinarily occupy it? There are certain elections one can make in order to defer the capital gain taxes when there is a change... [read more]

A bedroom, as most of us would imagine, is a place where one would ordinarily sleep, will have a door which can be shut so one can sleep in peace and quiet, will have a window for a daylight, and be large enough to have a bed. Ontario Building Code describes this in great detail, below are few excerpts: 9.5.7.1. Areas of Bedrooms (1) Except as provided in Articles 9.5.7.2. and 9.5.7.3., bedrooms in dwelling units shall have an area not less than 7 m² where built-in cabinets are not... [read more]