Do you have your properties in a holding company?

[Matt Belzile]

Last week I was told to consider having my properties in a holding company. I'm not really familiar with this, I'm guessing it's having them under a corporation to limit liability and pay lower taxes? I have 4 properties now, so wouldn't transferring the properties to a corp. trigger any capital gains tax?

Does anyone have any experience with this and can shed some light in this? 

Thanks in advance, 

Matt

[Jacob Perez]

@Matt Belzile There's a lot of questions about Hold Cos for rentals. I'm currently at 6 properties and they're all run in personal names. My accountant who also owns properties always recommends moving them to a hold co. 

Here's the issue. In Canada the lending is extremely tight, if you want to re-finance you're going to have a lot more trouble getting a good lender to refinance anything out of a hold co. In addition you'll still need to use your personal income to qualify for the refinance. 

For me at this point it hasn't made sense to do it, despite accountants (who make more money on business taxes recommending it). Not that the accountants are malicious they just might not be aware of the lending environment.