What should I know before buying a float home in BC?

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A float home owns no land: it needs moorage on Crown water or in a harbour authority's, and on the South Coast the Province takes no new float home applications. A float home is a house built on floats, lived in and not meant for navigation (the Province's definition). It sits on water, not land, so a buyer gets the home and whatever right the seller has to moor it: a Crown tenure, a marina's moorage, or a harbour authority's. Look up the address or PID on PlaceDossier to see the record for that lot. What a float home is: The Province defines a floating home as a structure built on a floatation system, used as a residence and not intended for navigation or usable as a navigable craft. Two or more joined to the shore and to each other by a common walkway or ramp, with water, power and sewage systems the responsible authority approved, make a floating home community (Floating Home Community operational policy, s. 1; Ministerial Order M43). The water under it: Below the natural boundary, the bed of a lake, river or the sea is almost all Crown land (see waterfront lot lines), so a float home moored there needs the Province's lease or licence under the Land Act, held by its owner or by the marina or community it's moored in. Occupying or using Crown land without one is an offence (Land Act s. 60). Water under a harbour board or commission is outside the Province's policy: that authority sets its own moorage (the policy, s. 1). No new communities: The Province doesn't accept applications for floating home communities (its floating home community page, updated September 15, 2025). Its policy lets a proponent send a written proposal with the local government's support, which an assistant deputy minister may approve in principle, followed by a one-year Land Act reserve over the water for planning (s. 4.1). The South Coast order: In the Province's South Coast Region, from March 1, 2025 to March 1, 2027, no application for an interest in Crown land may be made for a float home or a floating home community, except to modify, replace or assign an existing lease or licence, or to move one already authorized within Powell, Lois, Frogpond and Dodd Lakes (Ministerial Order M43, Land Act s. 10.1). So there a float home without a tenure can't get a new one, and buying one with a tenure means an assignment (our reading). Taxed like a house: Floating homes are improvements under the Assessment Act (s. 1), so BC Assessment values them, and property tax follows the assessment (our reading). A float home without a land title isn't eligible for the home owner grant (the Province's eligibility page; see the home owner grant). No land title: A float home on its own has no title in the land title office, so a mortgage, a lien or a charge on it isn't on a title search; a lender's security on it is registered, if at all, in the Personal Property Registry (our reading; see official records). Ask a lender before you count on a mortgage. Local zoning: A council or regional district can zone the water inside its boundaries, and many water zones don't allow a float home, or only in a named marina (our reading: ask the local government, or the Islands Trust on its islands). What it means for a buyer: What you're buying is the home and the moorage. Read the lease, licence or moorage agreement: who holds it, its term, rent, what happens when it ends and whether it can be assigned to you. A float home moored on Crown water with no tenure can be ordered to stop and to remove it (Land Act ss. 59, 60).

What should I know before buying a float home in BC?

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Before you buy: who to ask