Restricted posting - Selling a house and buying a house

[NavyVic]

Good day to all,

I do have a question and all the help would be appreciated. I have a member that has completed BMOQ in 2022 and now was sent to Esquimalt for training (Restricted posting). A training that will take multiple years to complete (around 5 years). This member decided to sell his house and buy a new one in Esquimalt (technically a CBI Move). Although, seems like he is eligible for any support by the military.

Situation: He enrolled in another province and the apartment he lived in was stored in that province. But he has a house with dependents living in another province. So he decided to sell everything and bought a house in Esquimalt to bring everyone there. Before doing all this, the orderly room mentioned to him verbally that everything will be reimbursed. He now sold his house and bought a new house. The orderly room only agree to move his storage from his apartment but not from his house. They also don't want to pay any other expenses related to the sell of his house (lawyers, fees, etc.).

The question is: Does this member is entitle to the sell of his house at public expenses (also, expenses related to the new home he bought)? If it's possible to give the references to help us out on this issue, it would be really appreciated.

Thank you

 

[ballz]

These postings are a mess, it seems no one knows how to administer them properly or how to inform the member of what to do in any given situation, and there are so many different situations that someone who already has a family gets put en route to finally becoming qualified and receiving their first actual posting.

I have two of my own shit stories of my own from that time period and I was single with no dependents, and then after being in Battalion for 2 years had another subbie join who was told he was getting no posting benefits even though he enrolled in Guelph and had never received a dime one way or another to be posted to Gagetown. Was able to help him and get him everything he was entitled to but it wasn't a fun process and in some ways was sheer dumb luck that he was entitled to anything - it certainly wasn't because what he was advised by various OR staff was accurate.

I do recall that you can only be moved from one location .. i.e. you can't have two different places that you live in and essentially get double the moving costs paid for. This was an issue since people were getting a prohibited posting to Gagetown after BMOQ for 2-3 years to finish training, and would get permission to "move out of shacks and live on the economy" without getting a cost-move authorized and would end up acquiring a bunch of stuff, but their F&E location was technically somewhere else.

Notably, this appears to have been amended recently, so someone has authority to approve benefits that are not necessarily specifically allowed for as long as they make sense / are equitable / consistent with the purpose of the relocation expenses:




I believe the member is technically required to have received a posting message that authorized the movement of F&E before he could sell his house and be reimbursed under CBI 208.96. If he sold the house before that posting message was received he might be out of luck.

He enrolled in another province and the apartment he lived in was stored in that province. But he has a house with dependents living in another province.

Not sure what the circumstances were there (and that will be important...), but upon enrolment (going from memory, things may have changed...) he would have received a posting message (prohibited..i.e. no move of F&E), which is what would have been the trigger to put his stuff in storage before shipping off to BMOQ. After BMOQ, another posting message to Esquimalt. You said it was (restricted) - so did it authorize a full-cost move or not? I remember those terms being thrown around loosely and I can't recall the various nuances but usually when people said (restricted) what they actually meant was (prohibited). See note 1 below.

Assuming he was authorized to move his F&E to Esquimalt, then he would have been entitled to the CBI benefits at that time, and had up to two years to claim them.

208.96 would authorize reimbursement of various selling fees if they sold their principal residence... meaning:

"a dwelling in Canada, other than a summer cottage or other seasonal accommodation, together with that portion of land of one acre or less upon which the dwelling is situated, that

1. is situated at the location to which the member's household goods and effects were last moved at public expense or is situated at a location from which the member is authorized to move household goods and effects where the member's household goods and effects have never been moved at public expense,
2. is owned by the member or the member's dependants or jointly by the member and the member's dependants, and
3. was occupied continuously by the member or their dependants for the minimum period established by the Chief of the Defence Staff."

If his house, spouse, dependents, were all located in City A, but the member enrolled in City B and indicated that their F&E was located at the apartment in City B, then there's a good chance the "location from which the member is authorized to move household goods and effects" is the apartment in City B and there's no entitlement to be reimbursed for selling fees of the house in City A.

Would likely have to make an argument that 208.01 should be applied.... I would need to see some Financial Delegation of Authorities to see who has been delegated the Minister's authority to make that decision - but my guess is it's the Base Commander at Esquimalt since everyone copies and pastes the DoAs. That would also entail having some finance and/or HRA staff who actually know these things which would be rare.

If you can pull up the the Base Comd's DOA in DRMIS and confirm they have the requisite authorities delegated to them and literally spell it out for them exactly who can authorize it and why they should, that the member submits the claim, has the denial communicated in writing, and then writes a grievance citing 208.01 and makes a case for why various things from City A should be moved at Crown expense, including:

Movement of dependents from City A to Esquimalt
Selling fees/expenses of the house in City A (hopefully the CAF did not pay to break his lease at his apartment, as that would make it a more difficult argument)
Etc.


Note 1

It was the practice in the Infantry to post all BMOQ-qualified pers prohibited to Gagetown... and then when they got there, if it looked like they would be there for a long time just marking time, they could submit a request and get authorized to move F&E there.

However, in Logistics, after BMOQ they would authorize a cost move to people to various bases across the country where they would start working as untrained 2Lts in various units.

Different career managers/trades, different ways of doing things.

 

[captloadie]

This is going to be an uphill slog for the member, and require he answer a whole bunch of questions to clarify his status on enrolment. When he enrolled, what was his marital status? Was there a reason he was living apart from his family (legal separation for instance)? Why did he indicate his primary residence was the apartment, instead of where his house and dependents were located? He won't be able to plead he didn't know the regulations unfortunately, only that he made the recruiting centre/BMOQ staff aware of his situation, and that they provided him with incorrect advice, which led him to make the decisions he did.

The largest hurdle for the member to overcome is the fact that his place of enrolment is not the same location as where his originally declared dependents and F&E are located.

 

[dapaterson]

Would likely have to make an argument that 208.01 should be applied.... I would need to see some Financial Delegation of Authorities to see who has been delegated the Minister's authority to make that decision - but my guess is it's the Base Commander at Esquimalt since everyone copies and pastes the DoAs. That would also entail having some finance and/or HRA staff who actually know these things which would be rare.

If you can pull up the the Base Comd's DOA in DRMIS and confirm they have the requisite authorities delegated to them and literally spell it out for them exactly who can authorize it and why they should, that the member submits the claim, has the denial communicated in writing, and then writes a grievance citing 208.01 and makes a case for why various things from City A should be moved at Crown expense, including:

Special Powers of the Minister would rarely be delegated out of NDHQ - my expectation is that it would land with CMP, DGCB or DCBA at the lowest.

 

[CountDC]

Could admittedly be wrong but my understanding is that this was not delegated down and has to be recommended to the minister by the CDS.

The 2 location thing is a mess for the member. Again could be wrong as the information provided is a bit vague as others have noted. It appears that he declared his apartment as residence/F&E location and thus had a move to storage covered? If this is correct then his entitlement would be to have this moved from storage to his new location. If however he paid for this himself then he has room to use.

The CAFRD for this year indicates that he may have additional entitlement as it does indicate the option in para b with him on the hook for moving the stuff from storage.

11.1.02 Move of (D)HG&E
1. when a member becomes entitled to move their (D)HG&E from their place of enrolment, the member may move from:
a. the location where the HG&E was stored on enrolment;
b. the residence that was occupied by the member or their dependants on their date of enrolment; or
c. any other location in Canada, however, reimbursement shall be limited to the cost that would have been incurred had the member’s (D)HG&E been relocated from the residence at subparagraph (1)(b).
2. The member is entitled to move (D)HG&E from one location only.

catch to this is that he had to have the move approval. Are you sure it was restricted and not prohibited as that is another mess.

There is a big factor that is missing in dealing with these moves - neither HRA or FSA are trained properly on moving claims anymore. This is a short coming by our training system with the current move policies. Personally I think the whole system needs to be revamped that either the contractor does all moves or remove the contractor and have the FSA complete the claims as the Finance Clerks did in the past. Of course this would also require the FSA courses to be revamped to include an intense training on move claims, perhaps even a separate course just like Cashier has but taken prior to posting into the move cell (cashier course is usually taken after already in there). This leads me to the question of Why was the OR giving advice on move claims instead of referring the member to the claims section?? Not aware of anyplace that the HRA completes 1655s.