A leasehold home in BC can list for 10% to 25% less than a comparable freehold nearby, by Zealty’s estimate. The discount reflects what you’re buying: the right to live in the home until a lease ends, not the land under it.
Most leasehold guides cover the well-known kind, the 99-year prepaid leases at UBC and SFU. In Victoria, you’ll also run into a kind they tend to skip: older towers that aren’t stratas at all. The province counts about 2,500 of these long-term leasehold units in roughly 20 buildings, mostly in Victoria and Vancouver.
Lenders treat the different kinds very differently, and so does the law. Before you fall for a price, it’s worth knowing which kind you’re looking at and how many years the lease really leaves you.
Three kinds of leasehold in BC
Strata leaseholds on public land
A public body keeps the land and leases it to a developer, who sells the units. UBC, SFU’s UniverCity and the Heather Lands in Vancouver are all examples. The Strata Property Act still applies, so there’s a strata council, bylaws and the usual strata documents. Recent leases run 99 years, and some older ones 60. At UBC and SFU, the land rent was prepaid up front, so there’s no monthly payment for the land.
When the lease ends, the land and the building go back to the landlord. What you’re paid at that point depends on the lease, and the province warns that it can be set at $0.
Leaseholds on First Nations land
The terms are set by each Nation and each project, so they vary more than any other kind. Westbank First Nation in West Kelowna says its leases often run 50 to 125 years, all are registered, and many are prepaid.
Older leases that aren’t prepaid are where the surprises come from. In Musqueam Park in Vancouver, ground rent that began at about $400 a year in the 1960s came up for review in the 1990s. The dispute went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which set it at roughly $10,000 a year per lot.
Leasehold buildings that aren’t stratas
Victoria’s Orchard House, a James Bay tower whose lease runs to 2073, is one local example. Residents buy the right to live in a unit until the lease ends, but the building isn’t governed by the Strata Property Act. That means no strata council and no owner vote on repairs, and the building’s owner sets the costs.
The lease clock
A lender won’t let your mortgage outlast the lease. A common instruction lenders give lawyers, set out in the Canadian Bar Association’s toolkit, is that the remaining lease must run at least five years past the end of the amortization. Some lenders want more. Zealty notes that some set the amortization at least ten years shorter than the lease, and that most will refuse a 25-year amortization on a lease with 30 years left.
That rule applies to whoever buys from you, too. Take a lease that ends in 2073. Buy in 2026 and you have 47 years left, enough for a 25-year mortgage under either rule. Sell in 2041 and your buyer has 32 years left: a lender using the five-year rule would allow a mortgage of up to 27 years, and one using the ten-year rule only 22. Sell in 2051 and the next buyer is looking at 22 years left and a mortgage of 17 years at most.
Each step cuts the number of buyers who can borrow enough, and the price has to come down to meet the ones who can. That’s why a leasehold’s resale value tracks the years left on the lease, and why the discount to freehold widens as the lease runs down.
The down payment can be different too. Zealty reports that some lenders cap leasehold lending at 75% of the value, and that CMHC and Sagen insure qualifying leaseholds but not all of them. A purchase with 5% down isn’t a given the way it would be on a regular condo.
What it costs besides the mortgage
On a prepaid lease, the land is paid for. You still pay property tax and strata fees, much like a regular condo.
On a lease that isn’t prepaid, read the rent clause before anything else: what you pay for the land now, when it’s reviewed, and how the new rent is worked out. Musqueam Park shows what an open-ended review can do.
In a leasehold building that isn’t a strata, the monthly charges are set by the owner, and leaseholders have fewer protections than strata owners. In September, the Times Colonist reported on an Orchard House leaseholder whose monthly costs were set to rise from $1,036 to $4,932 for six to 18 months, to pay for boiler, fire alarm and piping work. In a 2024 provincial engagement, 421 leaseholders named their main concerns as a lack of financial transparency, high monthly costs, large assessments on short notice, and legal costs passed on to them. The province says it’s looking at ways to expand protections.
What to get in writing before you offer
- The lease’s end date, and whether the home is a strata leasehold under the Strata Property Act or a lease in a building that isn’t a strata
- Whether the land rent is prepaid, and if it isn’t, how and when it gets reviewed
- What the lease pays you when it ends, if anything
- Two or three years of monthly charges and any planned building work, plus the depreciation report and minutes if it’s a strata
- A lender’s confirmation that it will finance that specific building at the down payment you’re planning
- How many years will be left when you expect to sell, and what a buyer could borrow then
A leasehold can be a sensible way into a neighbourhood you couldn’t otherwise afford, as long as you buy it knowing how many years you’re getting and who will be able to lend to the next owner. If you’re looking at one, call us at (778) 400-5727 or email hello@sureorigin.ca before you write the offer.
Lease terms differ from building to building, so have a lawyer read the lease before you remove subjects.
Sources
- Province of BC, Strata leaseholds
- Westbank First Nation, Benefits to purchasing on leasehold land
- Canadian Bar Association, Leasehold mortgages and lender protection
- Zealty, Leasehold vs freehold in BC (price gap, lender rules, insured lending, the Musqueam Park case)
- Times Colonist, Leaseholder struggles with surprise costs, sees need for protections (September 15, 2026; Orchard House, the provincial unit count and the 2024 engagement)
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