Regarding queries as to whether the determination of a property as a qualifying property for Canada emergency rent subsidy (“CERS”) purposes depends on its legal title, and whether a property containing a self-contained domestic establishment (“SCDE”) can be a qualifying property, CRA indicated:
- Regarding the reference in the “qualifying property” definition to “real or immovable property, in the common-law provinces, the term “real property” is “generally considered to mean land and anything growing on, attached to, or erected on it, excluding anything that may be severed without injury to the land.”
- “[I]t is not necessarily the case that a qualifying property of an eligible entity will always conform to its legal title” – for example, the leasehold interest of a commercial tenant may represent only a portion of the legal title of the property.
- The fact of a particular property including a portion subject to the SCDE exclusion would not necessarily “preclude the remaining part of the property from being a qualifying property.”
- For example, if part of a building was used as a personal residence, the remainder of the building that was used as a store could potentially generate qualifying rent expense.