Ontario home builders team to protect consumers

October 10, 2017

The Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA) is working with partners on a new initiative to increase consumer protection for Ontario’s new home buyers.
With the Ontario Building Officials Association and Tarion Warranty Corp., the OHBA has forged the Ontario Building Partnership that is meant to “uphold excellence in Ontario’s building industry” through greater consistency in education and consistent application of standards in the new home building industry.
“We’ve been partners for years on a number of important issues, like preventing illegal building,” said OHBA CEO, Joe Vaccaro. “Now, the Ontario Building Partnership will prioritize even more issues that are important to Ontario’s builders, municipalities, and new homebuyers.”
One of the first initiatives of the partnership includes striking a new working group that will focus on:
• Advocating for a legislated, province-wide program to protect homebuyers from illegal builders;
• Partnering on public education initiatives, information sharing on trade strikes, and other industry-wide matters and regional issues such as soil conditions and radon detection;
• Ensuring that Ontario’s homebuyers benefit from consistent and improved construction standards across the province.
“The home building landscape in Ontario is continually changing,” said Ontario Building Officials Association president, Matt Farrell. “New technologies, new risks, and building innovations make it all the more important for us to be working together.”
“Part of what we’re trying to achieve is greater consistency in education and application of standards, and increased professionalism across the province. We know that will, in turn, provide greater consumer confidence and better products for the consumer,” added Howard Bogach, CEO of Tarion, a private, not-for-profit corporation that administers the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.
It is illegal in Ontario for builders to build and sell a new home without being a registered builder with Tarion.