Do I have to file an election when I rent out my home?
Only if you want to stop the change of use being treated as a sale. When a home you lived in becomes a rental, the rules treat you as having disposed of it at its value on that date, even though nothing was sold and no money changed hands. The election is what stops that deemed disposition. It is made by the owner, in writing, with the return for the year the use changed. Nobody sends a reminder, and the point is rarely raised at the time. It usually surfaces years later, when the property is actually sold and someone asks how the change was handled.
I moved abroad and rented my Canadian home, do I file anything?
This is the most common version of the question, and yes. The move out and the letting are exactly the change of use the election addresses. It sits alongside the other filings the departure year brings, and the two interact: the value placed on the property at the date of the change is the figure the rest of the file depends on. Whoever owns the property makes the election. If the home is owned jointly, each owner makes their own, because the deemed disposition applies to each owner's interest separately.
Does each spouse file the election on a jointly owned property?
Yes. The deemed disposition is an event on each owner's interest in the property, so each owner elects for their own share. A single letter signed by one spouse does not carry the other. We see this missed most often where title was put in joint names for reasons that had nothing to do with tax, and only one spouse's accountant was told about the move. The practical consequence is that one half of the property is protected and the other half is not, which is a difficult thing to explain on a later sale.
I moved into a flat I had been renting out, what do I file?
That is the opposite direction, and it has its own election. A rental becoming your home is also a change of use and brings its own deemed disposition. The election in that direction is what stops it. The owner makes it, in writing, with the return for the year of the move. People who know about the first election often do not know there is a second, because moving into your own property feels like a private decision rather than a transaction. From the tax side the two are mirror images of each other.
Do I still file the election if the property has not gained value?
Whether the question arises is decided by the facts of the change, not by whether there is a gain. Where values have not moved, the deemed disposition may produce little or nothing, and that is a reason to check the position carefully rather than a reason to ignore it. Two things make the exercise worthwhile anyway. You need evidence of what the property was worth on the date of the change in any event, and that evidence is far easier to obtain at the time than years later when the property is being sold.
Nothing was sold, so why is there a disposition to report?
Because the rules treat a change in what a property is used for as though it had been sold at its value on that date and bought back again. The purpose is to draw a line between the period the property was your home and the period it was an investment, so the right part of the eventual gain falls to be taxed. The difficulty for the owner is that the tax lands in a year with no sale proceeds to pay it from. That is precisely the problem the election exists to solve.
What is a totalization agreement and how do I use one?
A social security agreement that stops you contributing to two systems for the same work, and lets periods in both count towards benefit eligibility in either. Which system you stay in depends on the agreement's rules for your situation — a seconded employee usually remains in the home system for a set period, a locally hired one usually joins the host system. You evidence it with a certificate of coverage obtained before or shortly after the assignment starts. See certificates of coverage.
Do I have to file in both countries?
Frequently yes, and the two filings do different jobs. The country where the income arises taxes it at source; the country where you are resident taxes your worldwide income and then gives credit for the tax already paid. Filing only one side is what leaves relief unclaimed — the credit has to be asked for on a return. We prepare both sides so the numbers agree. See dual filing.
