Tarion’s Reinstatement of Deadlines

Any of our readers who were in the midst of the Tarion Warranty claim process when COVID-19 hit our province know that the applicable statutory deadlines (including repair deadlines) were extended to September 11, 2020, and that meetings and inspections were postponed.

Tarion recently announced that it will be reinstating certain statutory timelines and will be expecting builders to carry out repairs. In particular:

• Warranty claim submission deadlines (including 1, 2 and 7 year warranty claim deadlines) that were due between March 16^th and September 11^th are all due by September 11, 2020. Claims may be made before that date (if your deadline was after March 16^th, but would have passed by now) – but they cannot be made after that deadline.
• Any Tarion warranty claim deadlines that fall due after September 11, 2020 remain in force. In other words, warranty deadlines due after September 11, 2020 are not impacted by Tarion’s COVID-19 response, and any such claims to Tarion must accordingly be filed on time (accordingly to the original deadline).
• The same applies to the deadline for requesting conciliation – for any requests for conciliation that would have been due between March 16^th and September 11^th, the request must be filed on or before September 11^th. Any conciliation meetings that were scheduled but postponed during the Emergency will be re-scheduled by Tarion.
• Tarion is waiving all conciliation fees until the end of 2020.
• The Builder Repair Period will recommence on August 27, 2020.
• Tarion has already resumed scheduling in-person inspections.

Tarion has confirmed its expectation that builders, homeowners, and Tarion representatives will all follow applicable health and safety protocol, including the use of personal protective equipment and maintaining appropriate physical distancing.

Given the above, for any of our readers who had a warranty claim deadline or a request for conciliation deadline come due since the Emergency began on March 16, 2020, you should take steps as soon as possible, but in any event no later than September 11, 2020 to file your warranty claim or request for conciliation.

For any of our readers who have a warranty deadline or request for conciliation due after September 11, 2020, please be sure you comply with the deadline.

Tarion’s process is such that if you fail to file your claim or request for conciliation by the deadline date, you will lose your warranty claim altogether. So, it is very important that you are mindful of your applicable deadlines as they approach.

As a final note, for any condominiums whose performance audit process was delayed or stalled as a result of the provincial Emergency, you will want to take steps as soon as possible to complete your performance audit. The effect of Tarion’s decision to set September 11, 2020 as the deadline for all claims that came due since March 16^th is that a large number of condominiums will be working towards the same deadline at the same time (with less than 2 months to go). As a result, performance audit analysts will likely be overrun with requests. So it will be important that you prioritize any outstanding performance audit work.