How Does a Tarion New Home Warranty Work

New homebuyers like to be assured that their purchase has been well-built and the construction of the home meets all of the local bylaws and standards. When it comes to home-construction regulations, one of Canada’s most-respected private businesses is the Tarion Warranty Corporation. This company makes sure that homeowners’ rights are protected in accordance to the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.

Home Builder Licensing

One of Tarion’s top jobs is licensing all new condominium and home builders in the province of Ontario. The company makes sure that builders have the proper financial stability, technical experience, and customer-service know-how and capacity to perform their job. The corporation recommends all consumers do a little research before buying a new home and helps out by providing them with the Ontario Builder Directory, which is accessible to the public. This directory has a wealth of information regarding home builders, including whether or not they’re legally licensed. The directory also has information on how many homes the builders have constructed, if their license has ever been revoked or refused and if there have been any warranty claims against them.

Tarion Warranty Coverage

Tarion also protects homebuyers by providing them with mandatory warranty coverage. This includes valuable things such as deposit protection and a guarantee against any financial losses and delayed closing for contract homes. There are one, two, and seven-year warranties available once you’ve taken possession of a new home. The one-year warranty offers protection against violations of the Ontario Building Code as well as against defective workmanship and materials. The warranty also protects against unauthorized substitutions and states that the home has to be habitable. With the two-year warranty, Tarion makes sure the home is protected against defective electrical, heating, and plumbing installation as well as water penetration, and defective window, door, caulking, and exterior-cladding materials. The warranty protects against the province’s building-code health and safety violations as well. With the seven-year warranty, the home is covered from major structural defects and shared common element areas of condominiums are protected, such elevators and recreation areas.

Tarion’s Online Resources

Tarion helps new homebuyers and builders manage their warranty by providing them with helpful online resources. The online warranty system is known as MyHome and it will notify consumers about warranty deadlines via automatic emails. The MyHome service has proven to be a hit with homebuyers as close to 75,000 of them used it in 2013. In addition, Tarion has an online resource system known as BuilderLink, which enables builders to manage inspections and enroll homes.

Tarion Customer Satisfaction

All homeowners can evaluate their builders via Tarion’s yearly Customer Satisfaction Survey. The company will send out a survey to all new Ontario homebuyers within 12 months of taking possession of their home. This will allow customers to grade their builders. The best-rated builders are then eligible for the Tarion Award of Excellence. This survey has shown that customer satisfaction has been on the rise because over the past few years. One of the reasons for this is due to the link Tarion helps forge between the homeowner and the builder. The results of the survey are given to all builders and Tarion helps to analyze them and provides service training and advice to builders with low ratings. Since lower-ranked builders won’t receive as many recommendations, this survey is seen as extremely important to them.

Claims

According to Tarion, the number of claims against home builders has been falling recently since most issues are now being resolved between the builder and homebuyer, which is something the company encourages. If a homeowner asks Tarion to inspect a house and the company finds the warranty hasn’t been honoured it could lead to chargeable conciliations against the builder if the issue hasn’t been resolved within the applicable time frame. If a builder receives a chargeable conciliation it will be applied to their permanent record and will show up on the Ontario Builder Directory. In addition, builders are charged $1,000 if an inspection reveals that one item under warranty hasn’t been adhered to. Another consumer-protection program provided by Tarion is to help fight against illegal homebuilding. This includes builders who don’t enroll their jobs under the warranty or aren’t licensed by Tarion. The company has been working with politicians to amend the law, making it harder for homebuilders to avoid supplying homebuyers with a warranty. Ontario vendors and builders can be fined up to $100,000 if they don’t enroll or register new homes which are required by law.