Applications are open for commercial property owners to apply for the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) for small businesses. All eligible commercial property owners are encouraged to apply to help ease the burden of their tenants while meeting their operating expenses.
To qualify for CECRA the commercial property owner must meet the following criteria:
- Own a commercial property that has one or more tenants that are impacted by COVID-19
- Enter into a rent reduction agreement for the period of April, May, and June 2020, reducing the impacted tenant’s rent by at least 75%
- Ensure that the agreement includes and moratorium on eviction for the period, and a declaration of rental renewal
Impacted small business tenants are businesses including non-profit organizations and charities that:
- Do not pay more than $50,000 in monthly rent per location
- Do not generate more than $20 million in gross annual revenues
- Has seen at least a 70% decline in pre-COVID-10 revenues
In order to apply, commercial property owners must provide the following documents:
- Rent Reduction Agreement for each impacted tenant
- Rent Roll for impacted tenants
- Property tax statement for commercial property
- Tenant information including number of full and part time employees
- A copy of the recent bank account statement where the rent is deposited
- Tenant’s business number
Please see the CMHC Website for more information and to apply: https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/finance-and-investing/covid19-cecra-small-business
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It was announced on April 24, 2020 that the provincial and federal governments will be working together to implement the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) for small businesses.
The proposed program will be lowering rent for small businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19 by 75%. This will be done by providing forgivable loans to qualifying commercial property owners to cover 50% of three months of rent payments from eligible small business tenants who are financial impacted during April, May, and June.
These loans will be forgiven if the mortgaged property owner reduces the tenant’s rent by at least 75% under a rent forgiveness agreement, which includes terms not to evict the tenant while the agreement is in place.
The tenant would be responsible in paying the remaining rent, up to 25%. Eligible impacted small businesses include businesses paying less than $50,000 in rent per month and who have either temporarily ceased operations or have had at least a 70% drop in pre-COVID-19 revenues. This would also apply to non-profit organization as well as charities.
The program is expected to be available mid-May, and would be applied retroactively to cover April and May, as well as June.
Further information will be available once the final terms of the agreement are set. It is recommended that you see the CRA website for further details as they are announced. Please also stay up to date with our blog posts for all of the latest information regarding Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan.
CRA: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html