Adding Your Child to the Title of a Mobile Home

What to know when your home sits on a rented lot

If you live in a manufactured home community in Nova Scotia and pay lot rent, you own the home but not the land. That is why you do not have a deed, deeds are for land. In these communities the land is owned by the park operator and residents hold a site lease. The home itself is treated as personal property and registered through Service Nova Scotia, similar to a motor vehicle, not through the land registry.

If you want to keep your home but add your child as a co-owner for estate planning or other purposes, there is a clear process to follow.

How ownership works

Even if the home looks permanent, with steps, skirting and a deck, it is still personal property if it is in a land lease park. Ownership is shown on a Certificate of Registration issued by Service Nova Scotia.

The 6 steps to add your child

1. Talk to the park first
   Check your site lease, most have a clause about assignment or change of ownership or occupancy. Park consent is usually required before new names can be added. Write to the park manager to request approval. The park may ask your child to complete an application. Get written approval, you will need to show it at Access Nova Scotia and keep it with your lease.
2. Decide how you will hold title together
   The two most common choices are joint tenancy, where if one of you dies the other automatically becomes sole owner, and tenancy in common, where each owns a share that passes through their estate. Many families choose joint tenancy, but tenancy in common may suit some estate plans.
3. Gather the documents
   Bring the current Certificate of Registration for the home, photo identification for both of you, the landlord’s consent letter and a copy of your lease. You will also need the gift form described below.
4. Complete the transfer at Access Nova Scotia
   Use the Application for Vehicle Permit or Certificate of Registration form, the same form used for cars. In the owners section list both names and specify the chosen form of ownership. For example, Jane Doe and Alex Doe, joint tenants, or Jane Doe as to a one half interest and Alex Doe as to a one half interest, tenants in common. Both parties must sign. Submit this form along with the current registration, identification and landlord’s consent letter.
5. Pay the fee and pick up your new registration
   The registration transfer fee is about $13.20. If you qualify for the family gift exemption, HST will not be charged. Service Nova Scotia will then issue a new Certificate of Registration showing both owners.
6. Follow through
   Update your insurance policy to add both owners. Provide the park with a copy of the new registration so the lease file can be updated. If your municipality sends tax or levy notices for the home, ask that both names appear.

The family gift exemption and HST

Normally HST is charged on a transfer, just like with a used vehicle. When the transfer is a gift to a close family member, such as parent to child, the tax is waived if you provide the proper form. A link to the required form is available at WorryFreeWill.ca/articles.

Both the parent and child must complete and sign the form. The signatures must be sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths or Notary. Access Nova Scotia staff are Commissioners of Oaths, so if both attend together the clerk will swear both signatures at the counter.

If the child cannot attend in person, the form becomes trickier. The form has only one commissioner’s section, and it states that both parties swear severally, meaning together before one commissioner. In practice, if they cannot appear together, the solution is to complete two originals. The parent signs and swears one before a Commissioner in Nova Scotia, and the child signs and swears another before a Commissioner or Notary where they live. Both originals are submitted together. Clerks are used to this approach and it is accepted as long as both signatures have been properly commissioned.

Tax considerations

The HST exemption only applies to provincial registration. For federal income tax purposes, Canada Revenue Agency treats a gift as if you sold the property at fair market value on the date of the gift. This is called a deemed disposition.

If the home is your principal residence, the principal residence exemption can eliminate any capital gain, so no income tax is payable when you gift it.

If the home is not your principal residence, a taxable capital gain may be triggered immediately at the time of the gift. You are considered to have disposed of the home at its current fair market value, and the difference between that value and your cost base is taxed as a capital gain.

When your child later sells the home, they may also face capital gains tax, but their cost base will be the fair market value on the date you gifted it to them.

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