A recent column by Bob Aaron in the Toronto Star covered two consumer cases in which home owners had to endure expensive legal proceedings to get resolution on home defect issues. One of the stories profiles should have been adequately addressed by by Tarion. Bob asked “Should unhappy new homeowners have to resort to the courts to get the house they expected?”

Let’s go one step further and ask, just how effective is the Tarion Warranty Corporation in protecting and helping consumers when builders in Ontario produce defective homes? Post your answers here so other consumers and politicians can judge for themselves if a few unhappy stories don’t speak for the overall effectiveness of Tarion.

New home purchasers should not have to pay for expensive, length litigation in order to get the house they paid to receive. As the engine of Ontario's economy, the building industry is often evaluated in terms of numbers of housing starts and real estate transactions, and not in terms of the quality of the product.
The Ontario government needs to remember that real families purchase and live in these "products". In order to protect the health, safety and financial well-being of new home purchasers and their families, consumer protection legislation and new home warranty programs must actually protect new home purchasers so that Ontario's families do not suffer the further victimization of having to spend their lives, and their savings, on extremely costly litigation.

Over the past 34 months I have become extremely familiar with the operation of Tarion and the rather biased and convoluted ways that this corporation operates. Therefore in answer to your basic question “How effective is the Tarion Warranty Corporation in protecting and helping consumers when Ontario builders produce defective homes?” My answer is a categorical No. I would further state that it is far from being effective, has a matter of fact, I would rate this corporation as a total failure! I would even suggest that it is a protection racket designed to protect builders at the detriment of the consumer.

Without dwelling too much into my own story, I would like to say that my problems are very similar to Joe and Joanne West of Hamilton. For more details one should contact the Hamilton Spectator for access to this story. In my case I began my quest to secure redress nearly 3 years ago, first, with my builder with ample invitation to Tarion and the City to lend a hand, and after nearly one and a half years of intensive litigation, I still find myself struggling with the system and the realization that I have been made to feel like a criminal for questioning the integrity of my builder, the builder’s structural engineer, the City Building Officials and their incompetent inspectors and lastly with Tarion Officials and reliance on some totally inadequate guidelines.

I did express my displeasure to Minister Phillips on at least three occasions and invited him to consider changing the current legislation to include the Ombudsman as overseer in the operation of Tarion. Currently, in my opinion we are not dealing with a level playing field. The current system is based on protectionism, a system designed by builders to protect builders. It is high time for our politicians to take into account some of the recommendations that have been publicized under Bob Aaron’s weekly column as far back as January 2005. The system is definitely not working, it is fostering perpetual fraud by forcing individuals without the means to take legal action to hide known code violations and serious defects by doing what is now commonly known as “Patch & Run”.

At present, the homeowner is left completely on his own once he as paid his builder the full price before moving in. Therefore, consumers are definitely not receiving the protection that they rightly deserve and pay for. You definitely can’t expect this from your builder, certainly not from the City, definitely not from Tarion, nor the LAT. It is painfully obvious that a solution is necessary and it must come from our elected representatives. The case of one unhappy homeowner is one too many when dealing with an investment as significant and as big as the purchase of a new home.

“Just how effective is Tarion
…Warranty Corporation in protecting and helping consumers when builders in Ontario produce defective homes?”

In the interests of brevity, let us just explain in part the water entering our basement just one month after moving in.
1. Tarion said that the “builder’s warranty required the homeowner to install sod around the home or concrete sidewalks” to run the water from the base of the house. (No such terms were stated in the Agreement with the builder.)
2. We spoke to a consulting engineer who scoffed at Tarion’s proposal and said that there was only one solution and that was to dig entirely around the house to inspect the exterior weeping tile and the exterior water barrier on the basement walls.
3. Eventually the builder agreed to excavate around the house but only 1½ deep, and Tarion accepted again whatever the builder said. Later water entered again and Tarion then replied to our lawyer, “the builder had done what was required, and this was a new water problem”. We then called in the engineers to do another study and report.
4. Our engineer identified that there were also problems with our interior weeping tile because outside water tests, identified by tracing colors, never found their way to the sump pump pit in the basement. As well, the basement concrete floor gave indications that larger amounts of water were sitting underneath.
5. Our engineer removed sections of basement insulation and found mold (health hazard!). Tests indicated water entry into the interior of the concrete blocks. Tarion said that they would only warranty free running water into the interior of the basement.
6. Tarion’s representative suggested on one occasion to our engineer if there was not a way to use a sump operation outside the home to remove the excess water from around the base of the home. (Did Tarion think that it would never again rain, snow or that the owner would water his lawn?).
7. Eventually at our expense we excavated and found that there were 4 separate locations of damaged exterior weeping tile, sump pump exit pipe plus damaged exterior water barrier. This had occurred during the backfill operation by the builder. The builder had also omitted the protective PVC sheeting normally fastened to the exterior walls.
8. When we had taken the builder to an Arbitration Hearing to our surprise the Tarion representative was there with their lawyer to support the builder and his lawyer.
9. This water issue with Tarion went on for 4 years. Tarion is obviously so powerful that it fears no lawyers, consulting engineers or expert witness.

That is not the entire horror story with Tarion!

Tarion is allowed by the Government to operate with impunity. I just found out that the Minister (Phillips) has very little real control over Tarion. He says it is a private Corporation. Imagiane a Private Company having complete control over one of the largest and most important purchase most of us will ever make - our home. Also I found out that the Ontario Ombudsman has no authority over Tarion either. Has anyone ever tried to get any corporate information or a financial statement from Tarion? You will be "stonewalled" Hmmmm do we have another Ontario Lottery Corporation fiasco here? I smell something!