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Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Montreal: A large mansion for a buck
 A dollar-mansion in Westmont A series of articles in the local press have revealed that selling houses in Westmount* and Hampstead** for a buck have reached epidemic proportions in the last 2 years. When asked about these let's say mysteriously low figures most notary publics remain silent like Egyptian mummies. Others prefer to cite as an excuse the extreme discretion of their clients. They, the notaries argue, just wanted to keep in secret their true assets from the general public. Thus selling (buying) a house for $1 is something like keeping your right of privacy. The buyers' and sellers' argument is that such a trick can't diminish their income tax even with a penny. But are they or could they be so innocent as this appears at first glance? Maybe the buyers couldn't save a penny while paying their income taxes but they could save thousands of dollars while paying the transfer tax imposed by the municipal authorities. The municipality is informed for the property transfer only after a notary public makes a written statement. Then a municipal agent verifies that all transfer taxes have been paid. When a transaction is declared to be for just $1 nobody except the two parties knows the real price. In such case the transfer tax is imposed on the basis of the municipal evaluation. If the real price of the transaction is higher than the evaluation then this higher price serves as a basis for imposing transfer tax. The transfer tax in Montreal is progressive, i.e. it's imposed 0.5% for the first $50,000 ($250 tax), 1% for the remaining up to $250,000 (another $2,000 tax) and 1.5% for anything more than $250,000. This means that when you buy an expensive house you have a bigger motivation to hide the real price of the transaction even from your notary. Thus e.g. when someone pays transfer tax on $1,000,000 (evaluation) instead of $1,400,000 (the real price) he pays $13,500 instead of $19,500. The affair with the one-dollar-castles has stirred up the discussions among the professional organization of notaries as well as within the municipal administration. As a matter of fact the public isn't happy that in a country where people are supposed to be equal, some are "more equal" than the rest of the population. The most radical solution that has been proposed so far is to investigate every deal and to summon the parties to sign solemn declarations that they have respected the law during the transaction procedures. Will this solve the problem? We'll see next year how many castles have been sold for just a buck.
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Canada.
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