Case information

Municipal law — Taxation — Property assessments — Movable becoming immovable through attachment — Computer equipment belonging to lessee — Parameters of test arising from s. 1 of Act respecting municipal taxation and developed by jurisprudence for defining whether movable becomes immovable by being permanently attached, and manner in which parameters must be applied — Act respecting municipal taxation, CQLR, c. F 2.1, s. 1.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicant Société en commandite Locoshop Angus (Locoshop) and the applicants Société immobilière Imso inc. (Imso) and iWeb Technologies inc., operating as iWeb Group (formerly known as Iweb Group inc.) (iWeb) have applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court from a decision in which the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the respondent, Ville de Montréal (City), with respect to assessments of their respective immovables entered on the property assessment roll. The issue in the two leave applications relates to the concept of a movable that becomes immovable by being attached to an immovable, within the meaning of s. 1 of the Act respecting municipal taxation. For the immovables included in Locoshop’s unit of assessment, the dispute concerns equipment owned by its lessee, Ubisoft, that supplies air conditioning and electricity to a computer server room. For the immovable included in Imso’s unit of assessment, the dispute concerns equipment owned by its lessee, iWeb: an air conditioning system, a generator that ensures a continuous supply of electricity to servers in the event of a service breakdown, and electrical equipment that also ensures the continuity of a hosting service. In the case involving Locoshop, the Administrative Tribunal of Québec (ATQ) held that the equipment did not have to be entered on the property assessment roll because it was not permanently attached to the immovable, but in the case involving Imso and iWeb, the ATQ reached the opposite conclusion. Appeals to the Court of Québec from the ATQ’s decisions were filed by the City with respect to Locoshop’s immovables and by Imso and iWeb with respect to their immovables. The Court of Québec dismissed the City’s appeal but allowed the appeal of Imso and iWeb. The Superior Court dismissed the two applications for judicial review filed by the City, and the Court of Appeal allowed the City’s two appeals.