A bunch of stuff changed in late 2016 with regards to cap gains. Cap gains are only exempt when the owner lives in the house. When my M-I-L died in 2019 she effectively stopped living in the house and the house didn't sell for over a year due to will issues. The house value from original appraisal to sale went up ~$100K and that was subject to CG.I didn't know that...so why not just put that money aside from the sale, invest it for a year and then you have it available...
Good to know information as we'll probably have to deal with capital gains in the next couple of years when hubby sells the place he has jointly with his mom...
The other issue is probate amount. Check with a lawyer but I think that the cottage can be gifted to reduce probate amounts but the cap gain still hits the estate when the owner passes. RIFFs, pensions and other income or investments pretty soon pushes the tax rate into the 50% area.
If you have a big chunk in sheltered investments it's not a bad thing to chisel them down at lower rates to avoid everything dumping on the tax mans's table at once
I was told that the CG can be deferred three years, again get legal advice.