“There is this incredible reluctance” of the B.C. government to go all the way in requiring transparency around property ownership, says an expert. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10110376A

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Judging from the vociferous reaction to my recent column concerning 4707 Belmont Ave. in Vancouver, which has an assessed value of $70 million, people are divided over whether the public has the right to know the beneficial owners of the second-most expensive home in Canada.

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Even with B.C.’s six-year-old Land Ownership Transparency Act (LOTA) and a government promise to allow searches of its registry — “at no cost for anyone” — the quest continues into knowing who owns it. The estate, with its 25,000-sq.-ft. mansion, is owned by a corporate trust registered in the British Virgin Islands.

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A flood of comments in reaction to the column about 4707 Belmont said it’s “nobody’s business” to know the person’s identity, and that any attempt to find out is a “witch hunt.” Others warned of enabling kidnappers.

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A roughly equal number of readers, however, observed that some of those opposed to learning the owner’s name did not appear to know that B.C.’s Land Titles Office provides the identities of virtually every landowner, and has done so since 1861.

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There is no evidence that the owner of 4707 Belmont has engaged in any wrongdoing. Indeed, for the purpose of this column, the owner’s identity is not relevant.

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The point is to examine whether the provincial government could more effectively accomplish the aims of LOTA, which came on the heels of the 2019 Cullen Commission.

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B.C.’s transparency act intended to go further than the Land Titles Act, requiring disclosure of not just the legal owners of a property, but the beneficial owners — those who receive the actual benefit and profit from it.

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The NDP set up a commission to examine the extent to which money laundering had penetrated B.C.’s casino industry and housing market. Former B.C. Supreme Court justice Austin Cullen concluded that billions of dollars of criminal and illicit funds flowed annually through B.C. casinos and real estate in the absence of effective provincial and federal law enforcement. It was contributing to inflated property values.

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Salvator Cusimano, executive-director of Transparency International Canada, said there is an urgent need for the B.C. government to provide data on how much compliance there has been with its efforts to shine a light on the true owners of property.

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Ron Usher, former general counsel for the Society of Notaries Public of B.C., said many readers may not understand “there is no absolute right to privacy in Canada.”

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Billionaire owners, Usher said, “have to play the game with the rest of us.” Links to the beneficial owners of dwellings are available, he said, in most of the 2.6 million land-title documents in B.C.

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Or, if the property is owned by a company or trust, he said the names of directors must be made available through the disclosure provisions of the Corporations Act. “The Cullen commission said we’re supposed to have transparency.”

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The Land Title Act allows the concealing of legal ownership in only extremely rare circumstances, Usher added, where there is danger of harm. LOTA also allows only limited exceptions to public disclosure.

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Asked about fears that billionaire owners could be subject to kidnapping, Usher said, “Is that a real problem here? It’s not a good enough reason.” And, anyway, he said, “Wealthy people can afford 24/7 security.”