In 2017, my family and I were living (renting) in Ontario.
In March 2017 we agreed to purchase a house for $625k which we were planning to use as our principal residence. The closing date for the house was in early June 2017.
At the end of May 2017, we moved to Alberta (renting) due to an employment change, before taking possession of the house.
On June 6th, the house in Ontario became ours, and we put it right back on the market. It sold for $610k ($15k) less than what we purchased it for. The closing date for the sale of this property was August 2017.
Upon closing I also had to pay real estate fees, and lawyers and such.
Although we intended to use the property as a principal residence, non of our family stepped foot in the house while we were the owners of the house. As far as I understand, this means that the house was NOT our principal residence.
Can I claim a loss on this sale? What kind of loss is it? Capital or non-capital? Can I just claim the sale price difference? Or can I add in the real estate and lawyer fees as well?
Yes you can claim the sale of this house as a capital loss as it was never your primary residence. Additionally any costs you incurred related to this property (legal fees, real estate agent fees, property tax, etc...) would also be considered related costs that you can also claim.
For a full list of what expenses you can include, see this page from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA):
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/rental-income/completing-form...