Our New Home

Well, Mike and I have been busy this past month. As many of you know, we had ordered a 2026, 38-foot Tiffin Phaeton to be built for us. It was built, furnished, and ready to go, until the order was cancelled. Why? Thanks to the current trade war, with credit to the folks who kicked it off, our new Phaeton would’ve been hit with about $150,000 in tariffs just for crossing the border. That’s before the 13% Canadian tax.

Thankfully, when we first placed the order, both Tiffin and the dealer agreed that if tariffs came into play, the order could be cancelled, and it was.

And just like that, we were back to where we were at the end of last year: do we keep our Georgetown or keep looking?

We started hunting for something already in Canada, new or just a few years old, but struck out. Between Canada’s smaller population and tougher winters, the RV market here is much smaller than in the United States.

When we originally ordered the 38-footer, I had actually preferred the 41-foot version, the big sister, but we weren’t sure how tricky a rig over 40 feet would be in North America. Four months on the road later, we realized: we haven’t been anywhere where the extra length would’ve mattered.

Then I spotted a U.S. dealer network with four Phaeton 40IH models across their network. Even better: all four were on sale, likely to make room for the 2026s. The one in Michigan was the closest to the options we had ordered for our original Phaeton.

Now, I had read up on how Canadians, and even Americans from high-tax states, register vehicles in Montana or South Dakota without actually living there. South Dakota is easy and charges just 4% tax (lower than most states). Montana has no tax, but you need to buy through a company. It turns out, that there is a legitimate service that forms a Montana LLC for you and registers your RV as soon as you get the paperwork.

The plan was:

• we (as Canadians) would form a company in Montana
• the company would buy the motorhome in Michigan
• the motorhome would be insured by a US insurance company
• the motorhome would be registered in Montana and receive Montana license plates
• the motorhome would stay, when not travelling, in a secure storage lot in New York near Niagara Falls

Easy right? 

Everything (almost) went better than expected. Within a week, Mike and I were the proud owners of a company in Montana. We prepaid for a year of insurance which was more difficult than it sounds. Some companies said that we had to use a Montana insurance branch/company, others said we could only insure it with a New York company. We got right to the end of the process with one firm and then they wanted Mike’s driver’s license and said they wouldn’t accept a Canadian one, so we had to start all over. We finally did get insurance and prepaid for a year. We arranged and paid for 13 months of  storage near Niagara Falls, New York. The hope is that tariffs will have disappeared by then. At that point in 2026, we’ll bring the RV into Canada as a used vehicle and pay the taxes. We tried getting clarity from Canada Customs before committing, and got the usual murky answers.

After we’d bought everything, we asked again at the border as we were bringing the Georgetown back into Canada. The officer’s response was somewhat reassuring and somewhat concerning: it was basically that “nine out of ten times, you’ll be fine.” The only wrinkle is that since the motorhome is technically owned by a company, taking it into Canada to show family could be viewed as a commercial trip. Worst case, we could be denied entry. We won’t be fined or penalized, but we could be turned around. Let’s hope we don’t draw the wrong agent on the wrong day.

We have taken our Georgetown to a consignment dealer in Montreal, one we’ve been to before and respect. But at the last minute, while cleaning it, we thought we’d try selling it ourselves. It wasn’t leaving Oakville for four or five days, so we had time to try. ChatGPT helped write the ad (thanks, AI). I never would’ve thought to post on social media, but that was the suggestion.

The response to our ad was remarkable, Facebook Marketplace was full of scammers. Kijiji seemed more grounded. A few came from AutoTrader, which had been my first instinct. But with just a couple days before the Georgetown left the province, there wasn’t enough time to vet and finalize a buyer. With a few more weeks, I think we could’ve sold it privately. We had to be in Michigan to pick up our new motorhome on July 3.

Two days after delivering our motorhome to the dealer, we had a sale contingent on financing and an inspection. We were thrilled. Two days after that we were told that the financing fell through. I hope we didn’t use up all our luck on that buyer.

We’re now heading to a nearby state park to do a proper “shake-down” trip and find out what works and what doesn’t on this new machine (Tiffin Phaeton 40IH).

We’re hoping for some sun. Mike and I both know that solar isn’t really cost-effective on most RVs, despite the hype. A generator powers everything. Years ago, I calculated how much gas you could buy for the cost of a solar install. It added up to many, many years’ worth of running the generator when needed. Still, I wanted solar, so we have 1,200 watts of it, provided that the sun is directly overhead . One day we’ll test what we can run without plugging in but not in 32° C (90° F) weather. We plan on fully utilizing our three air conditioning units.

If you’re going solar, lithium-ion phosphate batteries make a big difference and we had ordered them on our build-to-order Phaeton. On this Phaeton, the batteries were upgraded, but are not lithium which is an expensive option. The dealer wouldn’t give us any credit for swapping them out, even though they’ve never been used. So no lithium for us, for now.

For comparison purposes: our condo is just under 2,000 square feet. It has 20 sq ft of heated flooring, two TVs, three bathrooms, four sinks and one dishwasher. Our new RV which is around 400 sq ft has less than 20 sq ft of floor NOT heated, four TVs, 2 bathrooms, five sinks, one dishwasher (not counting Mike). For those of you that can count, this means that we have a separate TV about every 10 feet, all of which are operated and turn on with the SAME remote control unit. They say this can’t be fixed or changed. I say: watch me. I turned off the TV in the living room at night and the one in the bedroom came on, waking Mike up. This isn’t staying like this regardless of what we are told by everyone. Although there are definitely bigger and more luxorious Class A motorhomes on the market we are quite happy with this one.

I’ll post an update after our shake-down trip. Wish us luck.

Here is a very short, almost funny video of someone touring the same model that we have:  YouTube video  

Here are pictures of our motorhome on the web, before we actually moved in. It will never look this good again. We have already removed some of the furniture. Our new home.