Tarion and Owner Built Homes

Tarion and Owner Built Homes

 With the home building season in full swing our office has been handling several inquiries from individuals seeking to build new homes and their obligations under the Tarion Home Warranty Program (“Tarion”).

Tarion provides warranty protection to new home purchasers in Ontario. Tarion requires builders of new homes to be licensed through Tarion and pay certain fees with respect to every new home they build.

Occasionally, an owner desires to build a home utilizing a builder who is not Tarion registered. Typically this scenario arises when an owner seeks to use a company who does not typically build new homes and as such is not registered with Tarion.

An owner may be able to build a new home using a non-Tarion registered builder but there are specific and strict procedures that need to be followed. Fundamental to the process is that the owner must exercise significant control over the build. “Significant control” is not strictly defined and is contextual to each situation.

This is a complex area of law with strict penalties for non-compliance. I encourage you to contact the writer, or any of our Business Law lawyers, if you have any questions with respect to constructing an owner built home.

Please feel free to contact the author of this article with any questions or comments you may have at: nmartin@smithvaleriote.com