I’ve been blogging for years telling my readers that Tarion is a sham!
Apparently many others feel the same way I do as I’ve just come across two Petitions trying to introduce some “Integrity” into Tarion’s unfair dealings with consumers:
and:
https://www.change.org/p/tarion-warranty-corporation-make-tarion-accountable-honour-your-warranty
Look!
The Province requires that developers and builders MUST BE “Registered“ with Tarion or they simply won’t do any business here in Ontario.
I represented a guy from Ottawa that owned a beautiful parcel of land in the city limits of Huntsville (Ontario’s playground for the wealthy) that was registered and approved for 38 residences.
He had sold it to a group of professional hockey players.
They did all the legal work regarding getting the use of the land changed, drawing up all contracts, sales kits with floor plans, renderings, etc., built a sales office on-site and almost immediately and with minimal or no advertising they sold 1/3 of the units.
Tarion got wind of their sales campaign and served them with formal Notice that they had done all these sales without being registered with Tarion and they had to stop everything, give back all the deposits, then register with Tarion and “do it the proper way“.
Well, as most partnerships go, the three began bickering and the lead partner was in the midst of building his own mega-home near by, and one thing led to another and the project ended up in bankruptcy.
So you know that Tarion really has clout in this Province.
So, how is it that so little is known about this huge corporation?
It is interesting to point out that the Board of Directors of Tarion primarily and in the majority consists of lawyers that represent builders and developers?
How do you spell “Conflict of Interest“.
And they call it the Tarion Home Warranty Program with the distinct inference that it is a “Consumer’s Warranty”. And that’s how they sell it.
But did you know that the developer simply recoups all those Tarion registration fees from their buyers?
This is supposed to be a warranty that protects consumers, yet that only kicks in “at Closing“!
Up until Closing, it is Tarion’s position that they “do represent and protect the best interests of their client” which is the developer and/or builder.
I had a client once buy into a high end condo in Toronto, who was forced to Close in the middle of winter while she resided in Florida.
She had someone do the PDI (“Pre Delivery Inspection“) and that person was smart enough to write on the forms that they “could not verify the condition of the floors because there was so much dirt and debris on them“.
When she returned a few months later, the floors were still in that unsightly condition and she complained to the developer but nothing was done.
She actually wasn’t even given the respect or courtesy of a phone call brush off!
She turned to Tarion who immediately threw out that “there was no way for them to know that it wasn’t tenants that left the floors in that condition“!
To which, I interjected saying that the security logs for elevators would show that the unit had remained vacant all that time and that the buyer’s (“consumer“) friend had included in the paper work, that they were unable to sign-off on the floors because of the dirt and debris covering them.
The Tarion representative was fearlessly advocating to the point of outright litigating it, but a chipmunk could see that she was protecting Tarion.
This shows that it is really a Tarion Warranty to protect Tarion’s clients, builders and developers!
So why are consumers then led to believe that they are being protected under this Warranty when it is so clearly not the case?
And why are they forced to pay the bill to protect Tarion (it is passed onto them at “Closing” as an “Adjustment” and buried somewhere down in those lengthy ridiculous one-sided contracts that they require consumer to sign.
My August “Unique Users” Audit of my Blog from Facebook alone hit 1.6 Million in August!
I’ve long said that “when I whisper I’m heard around the world” and the success of simplycondos.com as a specialty condo buyer’s agency site, reinforces this to be accurate.
So I’m reaching out to everyone that reads this blog and asking you to take a few minutes and educate yourself on the “three card monty” game that is Tarion and sign their Petition that demands transparency (we don’t seem to know anything about this organization!).
How can that be!!!
It’ll take just a couple minutes of your time and serve as a critical step forward in attempting to get some kind of rights for consumers!
I thank you in advance for participating.
And for those who want to dig a little deeper, I recommend reading this article by Alan Shanoff, in Law Times
Alan Shanoff was counsel to Sun Media Corp. for 16 years. He currently is a freelance writer for Sun Media and teaches media law at Humber College. His e-mail address is ashanoff@gmail.com.
I’m Charles
