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NORTH VANCOUVER (DISTRICT) · E-2 FIELD GUIDE

Can rental property ownership be treated as the E-2 investment?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Not automatically. The category looks for a real, active commercial enterprise rather than a passive holding, so ownership that produces rent without meaningful business operations generally falls short. Where a genuine service business surrounds the property, with staff, contracts and daily management, the analysis is different and depends entirely on those facts, which counsel should examine before any structure is fixed.

Describe a week of actual operations

Write out what the business would do across seven ordinary days: bookings taken, staff supervised, suppliers paid, maintenance arranged, customers dealt with. If the page fills easily, there is an operation to assess. If it reduces to checking a bank balance once a month, that is the answer, and it arrived without spending anything.

Take that description to counsel rather than a valuation of the asset. If the page fills easily, there is an operation to assess; if it reduces to checking a bank balance once a month, that is the answer and it arrived without spending anything. Ownership producing rent without meaningful business operations generally falls short, because the category looks for a real, active commercial enterprise rather than a passive holding.

Where a genuine service business surrounds the property, the analysis depends entirely on those facts.