Case Stories

A homeowner contacted the Ombuds office after the warranty status for his HVAC issue changed from ‘Warranted’ to ‘Not Assessed – Needs Further Investigation’. The homeowner believed that the builder had convinced Tarion to change the warranty status of the item. 

It is not uncommon for either the homeowner or the builder to disagree with Tarion’s warranty findings. In this case, the builder raised concerns with Tarion about a third-party assessment of the homeowner’s HVAC system. After considering the builder’s position, Tarion decided that further investigation of the HVAC system was required before a final warranty determination could be made.

Our office considers it reasonable that Tarion provides builders and homeowners with equal opportunity to question their warranty assessments. However, we identified concerns with how Tarion communicated the change in warranty status to the homeowner. Tarion did not inform the homeowner about the builder’s concerns or provide the homeowner with an opportunity to respond to the new information the builder provided prior to changing the warranty status. 

We recommended that Tarion apologize for the lack of communication and that they send a written summary of the builder’s concerns to the homeowner.

This complaint revealed systemic concerns about how Tarion communicates with homeowners when a builder challenges Tarion’s warranty decision. You can read about the subsequent Own Motion investigation and the resulting systemic recommendations on page 15 of our 2022 Annual Report.