Potential sticky situation: delayed closing

[niloch]

Hello,

We listed our home in Nov 09 and had an agreement to sell 5 days later for a closing in early January 2010. Based on this we scheduled our departure for the US in Mid January after the scheduled closing.

Our closing got delayed 3 weeks due to financing on the buyers side but we proceeded to move to the US and ended up closing while in the US (we have not been back to Canada since). A month after closing we purchased a new home here in the States.

I'm now looking back at the situation (after talking to a colleague who said he was advised to close before leaving)

Does this mean we closed/sold as non-Residents despite having an agreement for sale while still living in Canada?

Should any special paperwork have been filed upon closing (we were originally supposed to close while still in Canada so this was never thought of)?

Can I potentially nullify the situation by still declaring as a resident in 2010 (I'd really rather not).

Or can I declare non-Residency as of the date of sale of the home? No one was living in it for the 3 weeks after we left.

Thanks for any advice

[niloch]

I should have noted that financing got delayed due to a small garage fire in our home a day before original closing and after our belongings were already packed up and enroute to the US.

With no where to live we proceeded to our temporary accomodations stateside and closed 3 weeks later after the damage was repaired.

I mention this, because I found that we may be able to apply for Taxpayer relief due to extrodanary circumstances. This may waive any penalties for non-filing any forms we may have had to file. But I'd still be concerned about any witholding or tax implacations of our delayed closing.

[nelsona]

You should file the required paperwork. Since no tax would be owing, there should be no problem. But do not wait. look at the non-resident section of CRA website for the actual forms.