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Having been indoors for two days running, today I at least made it out to Loblaws at street's end to ask for a refill on my meds. It requires waiting while some guy argues about his meds, which is like arguing with salespeople about the merchandise, but at last he took his aggrieved self off and I put my request in in about 30 seconds. This took less time than trying to do it by phone, with its constant busy signals, and let me pick up a family pack of my preferred cereal, which is 2.5 times the size of the regular package. There were still ice patches here and there on the sidewalk there and back. One stretch of three or four houses had clearly been salted by a machine of some sort that left curving arcs, which kind of argues the city or a neighbourly neighbour, but then the corner house was untouched. I used to grump that sales agreements for corner houses contained a clause that made the owner promise never to shovel snow, and certainly three out of four corners were fields of ice when I went up, reduced to two when I came back.
The mail included a window-boxed envelope from the city showing a violent yellow form inside, hitherto unknown to me. With reason: was to announce the introduction of a new vacant home tax for places left empty for more than six months. 1% of assessed property value, which in this ridiculous market means my place would require me coughing up $11,000. Not as ridiculous as it was: that's 100K less than my last assessment. How lucky I don't live in Japan anymore; but if they'd had this in the 90s I'd only pay less than half of what it is now.
I hope the tax provides some incentive for speculators, foreign or domestic, to put their properties up for rent at least, but frankly, I wonder if people who will pay in the multiple millions for a condo they aren't using will notice a mere 20 or 30 thou here and there.
The mail included a window-boxed envelope from the city showing a violent yellow form inside, hitherto unknown to me. With reason: was to announce the introduction of a new vacant home tax for places left empty for more than six months. 1% of assessed property value, which in this ridiculous market means my place would require me coughing up $11,000. Not as ridiculous as it was: that's 100K less than my last assessment. How lucky I don't live in Japan anymore; but if they'd had this in the 90s I'd only pay less than half of what it is now.
I hope the tax provides some incentive for speculators, foreign or domestic, to put their properties up for rent at least, but frankly, I wonder if people who will pay in the multiple millions for a condo they aren't using will notice a mere 20 or 30 thou here and there.