The second thing to get right is who is on the purchase at all. The valuable first-time buyer reliefs in British Columbia and from the Canada Revenue Agency are assessed against every buyer, so a well meant decision to add a parent to a title can remove a benefit worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The short version
- A gift needs a signed letter confirming the money does not have to be repaid. A loan is a debt and reduces what you can borrow.
- Never describe a loan as a gift on a lender's form. That is a false statement on a credit application.
- The Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal limit is $60,000 per person, and each person is assessed individually.
- A Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal and a First Home Savings Account withdrawal can both be used for the same home where the conditions for each are met.
- Adding a family member who has owned a home before can remove the first-time buyer property transfer tax exemption and the federal first-time buyers' GST rebate.
What a lender needs to see for a gift
Lenders accept gifted down payments from close family as a matter of routine, and what they want is documentation rather than persuasion. Expect to provide a signed gift letter naming the giver, their relationship to you, the amount, and a clear statement that repayment is not expected.
They will also want to see the money. That usually means a statement showing it leaving the giver's account and arriving in yours, and they may ask about the source if it appeared there recently. None of this is suspicion of your family, it is standard verification, and having it ready removes a fortnight of back and forth at the worst possible moment.
One practical point specific to pre-sale purchases: a deposit paid two years before completion still forms part of the down payment story your lender assesses at the end. Keep the gift letter and the statements from the time the money moved, in the same folder as your deposit receipts.
When family money is really a loan
Plenty of families intend the money to come back, and there is nothing wrong with that. What matters is that everybody, including the lender, is told the same thing.
A loan is a debt, so it reduces what the borrowing household can qualify for. Some lenders will not accept a borrowed down payment at all, and others accept it with conditions, such as no payments being required until the mortgage is discharged. That is a question to ask before you plan around the money, since discovering the answer during a financing condition is a poor time to find another lender.
Write the loan down. State the amount, whether interest is charged, when repayment is due, and what happens if the home is sold. Families skip this because it feels like a lack of trust between people who trust each other completely. The document is not there for the two people at the table. It is there for their spouses, their other children and their executors.
- Decide gift or loan before the money moves, not after
- Get a signed gift letter, and keep the bank statements that match it
- Tell the lender the truth about which one it is
- Write down loan terms: amount, interest, repayment, what a sale triggers
- Ask your lender early whether a borrowed down payment is acceptable at all
- Keep every document with your purchase file, because completion can be years away
The reliefs that are assessed per person
This is where a generous instinct can cost a family real money, so it is worth being precise.
British Columbia's first time home buyers' property transfer tax exemption gives a full exemption where the fair market value is $835,000 or less, applied to the first $500,000 of the price, with a partial exemption between $835,000 and $860,000. To qualify you must never have owned a registered interest in a property used as a principal residence anywhere in the world, and never have received this exemption before.
The Canada Revenue Agency's first-time home buyers' GST rebate has its own test: you must be at least 18, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and you must not have lived in a home that you or your spouse or common law partner owned, anywhere in the world, as your primary place of residence during the calendar year or the previous four calendar years. For a purchase from a builder, you must meet that test on the date ownership transfers to you.
A parent who owns or recently owned a home fails both tests. If that parent goes on the title of a home their children would otherwise have qualified on, the family can lose relief that is worth far more than the convenience of putting everybody's name on everything. Run the numbers with your lawyer before deciding, because the right answer is sometimes for the parent to lend rather than to own.
| Relief | Test applied to each buyer | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| BC property transfer tax exemption | Never owned a principal residence anywhere in the world, and never claimed this exemption before | Province of British Columbia |
| Federal first-time home buyers' GST rebate | Has not lived in a home owned by you or your spouse as a primary residence in the calendar year or the previous four calendar years | Canada Revenue Agency |
| Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal | Assessed per person, with a $60,000 withdrawal limit | Canada Revenue Agency |
Checked 29 August 2026. The BC thresholds have applied since 1 April 2024.
Registered savings, used by two people at once
Two qualifying buyers can each bring their own registered savings to the same home, because these plans are individual.
The Canada Revenue Agency sets the Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal limit at $60,000 per person, and confirms that you can withdraw from an RRSP under the Home Buyers' Plan and make a qualifying withdrawal from a First Home Savings Account for the same qualifying home, provided you meet the conditions for each at the time of each withdrawal. First year participation room in an FHSA is $8,000.
There is also temporary repayment relief on the Home Buyers' Plan: for participants making a first withdrawal between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2028, the start of the 15 year repayment period is deferred by an additional three years, so a first withdrawal made in 2026 has a first repayment year of 2031.
For a pre-sale purchase the practical issue is sequencing. These withdrawals are built around a purchase date, and a deposit falls due long before completion. Ask your lender and your lawyer to confirm the order of events before you promise a deposit instalment you intend to fund this way.
Protecting the giver as well as the buyer
Most of the advice about family money is written for the person receiving it. The person handing over a large sum deserves some thought too, and this is the part families find hardest to raise.
A parent funding a down payment should know what happens to that money if the buying household separates, if the home is sold at a loss, or if the parent later needs the money for their own care. A gift is gone, by definition. A loan can be repaid but only if the terms say so and the borrower can pay. Neither of those is a reason to avoid helping. They are reasons to be clear about which one is happening.
Where a parent is giving money to one child and has other children, it is worth deciding at the same time whether the gift will be accounted for in the will. Families that address this openly, once, tend to avoid the argument that otherwise waits fifteen years to happen at the worst possible moment.
We would also suggest the giver takes their own advice rather than relying on the buyer's lawyer. It costs an hour and it means somebody in the room is thinking about their interests specifically.
It is also worth agreeing what the money is for. A gift toward the down payment and a gift toward the deposit are different in a pre-sale purchase, because the deposit falls due years earlier, and a giver who expects to hand the money over at completion will not appreciate being asked for it eighteen months sooner.
Questions buyers ask
More in Buying With Family
Also worth reading
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page comes from the body that issues it. Rules and rates change, so each entry says when we checked it.
- The Home Buyers' Plan. Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed 29 August 2026.
- First Home Savings Account (FHSA). Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed 29 August 2026.
- First Time Home Buyers' Program. Province of British Columbia. Thresholds effective 1 April 2024, accessed 29 August 2026.
- Who can apply: first-time home buyers' GST/HST rebate. Canada Revenue Agency. Accessed 29 August 2026.
- Newly Built Home Exemption. Province of British Columbia. Thresholds effective 1 April 2024, accessed 29 August 2026.
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