They could have a whistle blower reward. Someone is going to find out. Say 20% of the fine goes to the person that reported it.

    > When you're throwing two million dollars at a house,
    > sight-unseen, that you then let stand empty for years,

... you're not breaking a sweat paying the $20k.

It sucks, you'd rather keep your $20k, of course. But it's not worth risking cheating it...

Having someone keep the house clean and presentable is in itself a laudable goal.

you might as well actually rent it out at that point..

That means tenancy contracts, risk of damage, and a whole raft of legal obligations.

If you're an absentee building owner, you don't (can't, really) worry about any of those things yourself. Instead, you lease your building to a property management agency, who handles all of that for you.

Well being a tax cheat also introduces a whole raft of legal obligations...

I mean, as compared to the cost of making it look lived-in, or just stopping by so as to technically "be occupying it". Rents in Vancouver are at a very low ratio to the cash value of property, as bad as 70:1 (value:annual rent.) In the normal world, it's more usually 20:1. This means that the costs and risks of renting a property in Vancouver are often considered not worth it.