Tarion announced the finalists for their Awards of Excellence in late August. This award recognizes customer service commitments in residential home builders.

According to Tarion's press release, "Recipients of the 2007 Tarion Awards of Excellence were identified based on the results of a survey conducted by Decima Research with 53,000 Ontario consumers who took possession of a new home between January 1 and December 31, 2006."

I was confused about the time frame used to survey home owners since many who must've answered this survey couldn't have lived in their homes even a year. Don't many home builders wait to service the new home until after one year?

Should the timeframe for this survey be expanded? Would the results be more appropriate and representative of the true nature of a builder's customer service if the consumers who took possession of a new home within the last three years, at least, were surveyed?

"Protecting new homebuyers" says the advert, it should say "victimizing new homebuyers".

In the first year of new home ownership you learn to beg your builder to come back and fix things, as if you are to blame for his mistakes. His continual promises and procrastination mean that you will not start to interact with Tarion in the first year. Tarion is (falsely) positioned as a mediator of last resort, so for many their insurance terminates long before they are ready to complain.

New homeowners risk being demoted in the builder's waiting list if they irritate him. He will say, "don't get Tarion involved, we will take care of it". New homeowners so willingly sacrifice their pride trying to please an increasingly rude builder. In most other industries, you can withhold payment until satisfied. With builders, you have zero leverage, so you beg and beg and beg.

If the builder never intends to fully repair your problem, you will likely not realize this until well into your insurance claim process. It can take years before you fully realize how corrupt that process is. By that time, you will have spent more on experts and lawyers than it would cost the builder to do a questionable fix. Many give up from exhaustion and by touching the problem themselves they void their warrantee.

Tarion's survey is an obvious scam. They have powerful political backers who need ammunition to prove that your monopoly, builder controlled insurance program is working just fine. If you don't believe conspiracy theories or mafia stories, check the LAT statistics yourself, write to CFPBH or count how much of your insurance payments Tarion uses as party political contributions.

If you buy a new home, you too could be reduced to writing pathetic anonymous postings in forums like this. New homebuyers will never get their act together to fight back. By publicly airing their concerns they reduce their home value and invite defamation suits. Tarion's corruption is such old news.

In answer to your latest comments, we and from what I can see many others have problems with Tarion and the rather inept politicians.

I contest that I remained silent throughout the past two years, I have been with many other through CPBH examined our option, written letters to the press, my politicians and initiated a rather costly litigation involving the City, the Buider's Engineer and my builder.

I maintain that unifying all or our resorces we can make a difference, to this end I will be sending letters to all of the candidates in my circumscription and the leaders of all of the political parties in order to affect a change in the next provincial election, that is, place Tarion under the perview of the Ombudsman.

God willing we will make a difference for no one else should have to go through the hell hole that we have been in for the past two years, because incompetence and misrepresentations.

Claude, you are an inspiration. After my wife and I lost two persons years of income creating 10 file-boxes full of evidence against Tarion and the LAT, I guess I feel like an expert victim. Slavery was abolished, and that was far more entrenched and corrupt. There is always hope.

The APEO are struggling to keep up with Tarion-related investigations into potential engineering stamps for hire, the Ombudsman is hiring and looking for reasons to investigate, several political parties (not in power) have expressed awareness that there is a seropis problem, the media is all over it, and bit by bit, maybe justice will prevail...but at what cost to the innocent?

Thanks for your kind word, here is another little bit of interesting observations.

Please visit the Tarion site and under the Press Release and you will find a news release about the Excellence Finalists with a listing of all identified potential winners.

Under the medium Volume Category you will note that one of these finalist is also listed unber the Find a Builder and verify the statistical records of each of the finalists and you should also be in a position to observe that one of these selected finalist has in excess of $16K of Chargegeable Conciliations, I assume that this must be an error on Tarion's part, for if this is true I shiver to think what the other homeowners had to endure.

I find the basis for the Tarion 2007 Award of Excellence ceremonies to be quite confusing.() Is an award not given to someone who has been measured and found to have successfully achieved some measurable standard?

If Minister Phillips requested a survey of customer's satisfaction of the mandatory Tarion new home warranty program, should subjects for that survey not include purchasers who have actually completed the program?

Since the Tarion survey was not circulated to any purchaser who has actually completed the two-year portion of the Tarion program, the Tarion Award of Excellence is not based on a survey that satisfies the request of Minister Phillips or as an accurate measure of whether or not builders have achieved a measurable standard of excellence. In other words this Awards ceremony seems to be nothing more than a declaration to those of us who have suffered as a result of inadequate new home warranty coverage, that we have no value in the eyes of those who control the building industry.

Declaration or not, we do have value and as Claude's posting says, together, victims of new home defects have a much louder voice. The mosaic we create when we all stand together will so brilliant that it will penetrate the eyes of even the most blind politicians.