Parent on Title to Help You Qualify: Do You Have to File CRA’s T3 and Schedule 15?

Co-signing is not the same as being on title — and only one of them can create a bare trust. Here is why the reporting rules did not apply for 2024–25, and why most family principal-residence cases stay exempt even after they return in 2026.

I am Arthur Zhao. Helping a child get across a lender’s finish line is one of the most common things parents ask me about — and one of the most common places I watch people scare themselves over the wrong thing. The CRA bare-trust rules generated a lot of noise, and many families now assume that putting a parent on title automatically drags them into a T3 filing.

For the situation this article is about, that is usually not true — but the reasons matter, because they differ from year to year, and one wrong assumption can send you filing something you never had to. Below I draw the single line that decides everything (co-signer versus on title), walk the three chapters of these rules year by year, and show which families actually do get pulled back in for 2026.

Co-signing a mortgage is not the same as going on title

These two get used interchangeably at the kitchen table, but the tax law treats them as completely different acts.

Co-signer or guarantor, not on title. You sign the mortgage documents and stand behind the child’s payments, but your name never appears on the property’s title. There is no trust here, bare or otherwise — nothing to report on a T3 return or Schedule 15, full stop.

On title as a registered co-owner. Many lenders will only count a parent’s income if that parent is also on title, so the parent’s name goes onto the deed. If the down payment, the mortgage payments, the occupancy and the real economic benefit of the home all belong to the child, and the parent is on title purely to help qualify, then the parent’s registered interest can look like a bare trust in the eyes of the Income Tax Act. Only at that point does the reporting question even open up.

What the CRA actually means by a “bare trust”

Here is a fact that surprises people: the Income Tax Act contains no definition of the term “bare trust.” In practice the CRA points to s.104(1): a bare trust exists where the trustee — here, the parent on title — can reasonably be considered to act as agent for all of the beneficiaries in every dealing with the property, holds nothing but the legal title, and has no significant powers or responsibilities beyond that. The only function is to hold the name on the deed.

Map that onto the family scenario: if the child funds and lives in the home and enjoys its benefit, and the parent is on title only to satisfy the lender, the parent’s slice looks a great deal like a bare trust. Whether it has to be reported flows entirely from what happens next.

Co-signer only vs on title

Three tax years, three different answers: 2023, 2024–25, 2026

The bare-trust rules have lurched around for a few years, and the reason people are confused is that “you do not have to file” has meant different things in different years.

2023 tax year — administrative relief. The CRA said it did not expect bare trusts to file a T3 (including Schedule 15) for 2023 unless it made a direct request. That was the CRA choosing not to enforce — a grace period, not the law saying you were exempt.

2024 and 2025 tax years — the rules simply do not apply. In the CRA’s own words, bare trusts “are not subject to the trust reporting rules and are therefore not required to file a T3 return, including Schedule 15, for taxation years ending on or after December 31, 2024 and before December 31, 2026.” This is a different animal from 2023: not a pause, but the reporting rules not reaching bare trusts at all. Do not blur the two.

2026 tax year onward — some bare trusts come back in. For taxation years ending on or after December 31, 2026, certain bare trusts — the ones caught by s.150(1.3) and not saved by an exception in s.150(1.31) — are back on the hook. The CRA calls these “reportable bare trusts.”

Who actually gets pulled back in for 2026: 150(1.3) and its exceptions

Section s.150(1.3) is the net: it treats an arrangement where a legal owner holds title for someone else’s benefit and acts as their agent as a trust that must report. Then s.150(1.31) carves out a list of exceptions. Three of them matter to ordinary families:

(a) every beneficiary is also a legal owner, and there is no legal owner who is not also a beneficiary — the names on title and the people who benefit line up exactly.
(b) the legal owners are individuals who are related persons, and the property would be the principal residence of one or more of them if they designated it under s.54.
(c) the legal owner is an individual and the property is held for the use of the owner’s spouse or common-law partner, and would be the owner’s principal residence if so designated.

There are further exceptions for partnerships, court-ordered holdings and Canadian resource property ((d)–(f)) that rarely touch a family home.

Read (b) again and the answer for most families falls out: a parent on title to help a related child qualify, where the child lives in the home as a principal residence, lands squarely inside exception (b) — and usually does not have to file.

From 2026: likely exempt vs possibly reportable

What to do now — and the one thing you have to wait for

Three steps, in order.

1. Pin down which kind of help you actually gave. Pull the mortgage and title documents: is your name only on the mortgage, or also on the deed? If it is only on the mortgage, you are done — none of this reaches you.

2. If you are on title, get three facts straight: is the home a principal residence of one of the registered owners? Are all the registered owners related to one another? Who actually paid the down payment and the mortgage, and who benefits? Those three answers decide which exception you land in — or whether you land in none.

3. One thing genuinely cannot be rushed — the CRA has not yet released the 2026 operating details. Its page states that more information will be added before the T3 filing season for trusts with tax years ending December 31, 2026. So the final word on exactly how — and whether — to file will come with official guidance ahead of the early-2027 filing season. The steady move is to map your ownership structure with a professional now, so that when the guidance lands you can slot straight in.

One closing note: this article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Whether a bare trust exists and must be reported depends heavily on your specific facts — who paid, who benefits, how the home is used — so take anything involving a real decision to a licensed CPA or tax lawyer.

Arthur Zhao

Real Estate Broker · FRI · ABR · SRS · PSA · MCNE · E-PRO · CLHMS & GUILD Elite · REAIS

VP & Branch Manager, Bay Street Group Inc.

Get expert answers on buying, selling, and renting in the GTA