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When you buy a new house or condominium in Ontario, you are protected by a warranty guaranteed by a private corporation known as Tarion. Set up in 1976 to regulate the new home building industry in this province, Tarion licenses all new home and condominium builders, sets minimum time standards for after-sales service, and conciliates issues between homeowners and builders.
Not everybody reads the fine print though, so Tarion has been seeking ways to better inform homebuyers of everything they should know before purchasing, and how to remedy any problems afterwards. To that end, the Tarion website has been overhauled to be more informative and easier to navigate.
Howard Bogach, President and CEO of Tarion, wants to make sure that homebuyers have the facts as well as the hype. “While consumers need to research new home builders using a number of sources, we want to ensure we provide as much helpful information as possible. We believe more can always be done to inform consumers while meeting legal, privacy and homeowner interests.”
For instance, purchasers will soon find a revamped Ontario New Home Builder Directory which now includes information on builders who are no longer registered. Earlier initiatives have allowed consumers to search the Tarion website to find out if a builder has had its licence refused or revoked, whether it has one or more chargeable conciliations against its name, and the total dollars paid out in claims by Tarion. If a builder is part of an umbrella group of companies, consumers will soon be able to learn other names under which the builder may be operating and the communities in which it builds.
There's much more to be found on Tarion's website, and anyone purchasing a new home in Ontario should familiarize themselves with the information available to them there.
