Home Warranty Toronto

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Home Warranty

W-FIVE Staff

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When Donna Rushton moved in 2002 to a brand new house in Angus,

Ontario, a small town an hour's drive from Toronto, she thought it

would the last house she ever bought.

" This was to be our retirement home, " she says.

But right away there were problems. No stairs on the second-storey

back porch, so she had to walk around from the front of her house to

get to the backyard.

That was just the beginning.

Only five months into her dream home and Donna started watching the

walls come apart in the master bedroom.

" And I can put my hand right under because it doesn't sit on the

subfloor, so I don't know if this wall has raised up or the floor

has sunk down. "

Like all new homeowners in Ontario, Donna had a warranty, purchased

from what was then called The Ontario New Home Warranty Program. And

they put her in touch with the builder.

" I walked him through my house, " she says. " And I showed him the

different things, the counter had come away at this point from the

wall and in the kitchen. And I had some walls upstairs additional

walls that had started to split apart. And I showed him how the

bathtub was starting to sink to one side. "

The builder diagnosed her problems as normal settling, but it went

on for more than a year and still no repairs were made.

Donna claims he didn't take her complaints seriously

" And you know, he's going on there's nothing wrong, " she

says. " You're this, you're that, you're a stupid woman, you don't

know anything. Why don't you just be quiet and go away instead of

trying to make all this trouble for me. "

Then Donna found she wasn't alone. Two doors down, at number 53,

neighbour Jane first noticed something funny with the

brickwork.

Normal settling? Maybe. But inside, the walls and floor weren't

attached to each other and began to split apart.

" The staircase is starting to pull away, " says Jane. " It's pulling

away from what they had it held to, even though it's not connected

side to side. "

Another call to Home Warranty. Another referral back to the builder.

" When he walked through the bottom part of my house, he told me I

was wasting his time and how dare I call him, and this sort of

thing, " she says. " And then, when we walked up the stairs, his tune

changed and he said: Oh, I'll have someone right here next week to

fix it. "

Months later, Jane was still waiting and worrying. Meanwhile, Donna

Rushton started investigating the site their houses were built on.

" This used to be a lake, " she says. " This is a lake bed. And it's

swamp on the other side, this used to be all swamp. "

But what did Home Warranty claim was causing the problem?

The wind. Not covered by the warranty.

" This whole thing has become one huge nightmare, " says Donna. " And

now Home Warranty is telling us that what's causing the problems in

our house. It's a thing called lateral wind factor. It's when the

wind blows against a structure. It causes, as it's explained to me,

it's like a tuning fork. It vibrates slightly. "

That's not what they found down the street at number 57. Forget

wind. Forget settling. This house was coming apart at the seams. In

the windowless bathroom, daylight streamed through the gaps.

This time Home Warranty was forced to act, hiring a company called

Earthtec to take soil samples.

The conclusion? The house was sinking. Too expensive to fix. Tear it

down.

So when W-FIVE dropped by, former owner Patti Hazlett was packing

up, moving out. After five years of negotiating, first with the

builder, then with Home Warranty, who bought her out. But on one

condition. She couldn't talk about her deal with Home Warranty in

public.

" There were a lot of problems in this house every since I moved in, "

said Patti when W-FIVE knocked on her door. " But unfortunately, I

went into an agreement with a settlement with Ontario Home Warranty.

So unfortunately, I can't say anything. "

Patti Hazlett was sworn to silence, while up the street, Donna

Rushton and Jane could only speculate what was causing their

houses to come apart.

And what would happen if Donna decides to call it quits and sell

what was supposed to be her dream house?

" I can't sell it the way it is, " she says. " I don't think anybody

would buy it because, according to Earthtec, this isn't going to

stop unless it's corrected. Which means opening up the walls and

joining the walls and floors. And sorry, I'm not a builder I don't

know how to do that. "

Well, what of the builder, Fedco Construction?

The company's literature boasts, " The Fedco philosophy of

sensitivity to their customers' needs ensures your total

satisfaction. "

For months, W-FIVE tried to speak to Fedco's President, Edmund

Farrage.

We checked at the corporate headquarters, which just happens to be

his house, and were told he was out of the country.

Two months later, we met up with Mr Farrage, but he gave us the

brush-off.

Meantime, back in Angus. Donna Rushton watched the gaps grow larger

and walls move further apart.

" And this has occurred over the last year, " she says.

So if the builder wouldn't fix the problems, who could she turn to?

How about that new home warranty?

New home warranty programs vary across the country. Some are run by

provincial governments. Others are private, like in Ontario, where

they're also mandatory.

Donna had paid $800 for hers and believed it would protect her. But

for two and a half years, she waited, was told the problem was the

wind, and worried her house might end up like Patti Hazlett's.

" It's already shifting, " she says. " Is it going to take another

year? Is it going to take five years, at which point my warranty is

up. I'm out of warranty. I have no one to go back on. "

Her experience caused Donna to lose faith in the Warranty Program.

" I thought they were supposed to be protecting me, " she

says. " Because that's what they claim, that they protect the home

buyer, but I think they're protecting the township, I think they're

protecting the builder. And I think they're protecting themselves

for having to pay out any more money. "

Somerville runs Canadian for Properly Built Homes, a consumer

lobby group based in Ottawa, and says she's getting complaints about

home warranties, not just from Ontario, but from all over Canada.

" It can be anything from leaking roofs, leaking foundations, homes

sinking into the ground, " she says. " And it's also important to

recognize that often it's not just one problem in a home. There may

be just one problem. There may be a myriad of problems. "

Admitting shortcomings, the Ontario New Home Warranty Program was

reorganized.

First, a new president, Greg Gee. Then, in 2003, new rules.

Eventually, a new name - Tarion Warranty Corporation. And a new

promise of protection.

The Board of Directors was reformed, adding members from outside the

building industry.

And the maximum payout for defects was increased from $100,000 to

$150, 000.

Somerville doesn't believe this is enough.

" If you have serious problems with your home, you may well find that

$150,000 isn't adequate, " she says. " Most homeowners cannot afford

to pay for a new home and then pay for additional repairs on top of

that. Tarion should be looking after these new homeowners. "

Even with reforms to the warranty program, there's one big problem

for homeowners like Donna Rushton and Jane - the changes

weren't retroactive and didn't apply to them.

Does this mean that Tarion has really changed the Warranty Program,

or was the new name just the old program in a new jacket? Its

President, Greg Gee, has boasted about his commitment to providing

superior customer service and communicating effectively with home

buyers. But when W-FIVE asked to talk about the houses in Angus and

the program in general, he turned us down.

In a telephone call, a Tarion spokesperson told W-FIVE that the

reason for this was because, " The issues arose long before our

current CEO and most of our current management arrived at the

company. "

But it turns out the Warranty Program had been dealing with Donna

Rushton and Jane the entire time Greg Gee was in the charge,

for more than two and a half years.

Tarion was given the power to administer home warranties by the

Ontario Government, through the New Home Warranties Plan Act. That

legislation requires Tarion to submit an annual report to the

Minister of Consumer and Business Affairs.

But when we asked for an interview with the current minister, Jim

, his people told us they had no control over Tarion because

it was a private company. However, Mr. was happy to share the

limelight with Tarion's President, Greg Gee, when the company

launched its new name.

Both happy for publicity when the news is good. Not so happy when

the news is bad, like the problems with the houses in Angus.

So W-FIVE attended the public launch of another good news event,

Consumer Awareness Week.

In his opening remarks, Mr said, " This week is dedicated to

helping consumers and businesses understand their rights and

responsibilities in the marketplace. "

A perfect opportunity, we thought, to raise the issue of Tarion. But

the Minister's people guessed our questions might dampen all that

good news, so we made a deal - If we didn't ask questions about

Tarion at the public press conference, the Minister would talk to us

when the rest of the media left.

Mr. wasn't happy to hear that Tarion had refused to be

interviewed.

" I don't think that's a wise decision on their part, " he said. " I

think they should be available to answer questions. They, like me,

can't comment on a specific case that's in process now. It would be

inappropriate for a politician to start talking about a specific

individual homeowner's case. We can talk about the general policies

and parameters, but your point is well taken. I don't why they

wouldn't do that and I certainly will follow up and ask the same

question. "

And the Minister did follow up. The very next day, he finally

replied to Donna Rushton's complaints.

He wrote to her, saying, " Upon receiving your letter, Ministry staff

contacted Tarion regarding your concerns. "

Over at Tarion, all the attention also led to action. The floors and

walls of Donna Rushton and Jane 's houses were finally bolted

together.

" They sent a contractor, a qualified contractor to mine and Jane's

home and we met with him, " says Donna. " He went through the house

thoroughly. He spent about an hour and a half in each home with us,

you know, and gave us a good idea of what was going to take place. "

Ontario's Consumer Minister, Jim , claims the improvements to

the Warranty Program will prevent future delays in rectifying

problems like those in Angus.

" I think the organization today is substantially better than it was

a year and a half ago, " he says. " It's not perfect, but I can tell

you if you'd come to see me two years ago, the kind of situation you

would have found would have been night and day. "

But despite the repairs to her walls, Donna Rushton still doesn't

have clear answers as to why her house is settling.

" They've never taken soil samples behind our homes, " she says. " So I

can only assume that they are either going on the soil samples they

took from behind Patti's house or they're going on the original

geological reports before these homes were built and I don't trust

those reports cause Patti's house sank and her house was built on

the assumption that those reports were good. "

And W-FIVE discovered that even new complaints aren't being fast

tracked as promised.

n Chang moved into her new house in Kitchener, Ontario in

November, 2003.

That's a month after Tarion announced improved service.

During the first heavy rain, water poured into her basement.

" Water was seeping past the insulation and ending right about this

area, " says n. " And I just freaked out. I started ripping off

the insulation and found out this whole wall was saturated with

water and then there was mold growing on both corners. "

First step, call the builders. Not a leak, they said. It's

condensation, they said, despite n's complaints that water was

pouring down the wall.

" I notice more when it's raining, " she says. " Especially when it

rains heavily. And I had hired a home inspector out of my own

pocket. His suspicion? It's not condensation. "

Armed with the inspector's report, n called Tarion. Their

answer? It could be up to a year before her problems are fixed.

" In the meantime, " says n. " The person I talked to in December,

one of the suggestions he's recommended to me was if water's running

down the wall, I can just use a squeegee, and push it towards the

drain. "

And while she waits, mould spreads on the walls, and n fights

back with a de-humidifier running 24 hours a day.

" I feel they have no sympathy for me, " she says about

Tarion. " They're not there to help me. I don't know what they're

there to do. But my feeling is they're not there to help me. "

Meantime, back in Angus, number 57 Parkside Crescent sits empty,

waiting for demolition. Up the street, Jane and Donna

Rushton keep a nervous eye on those cracks, and wonder what the Home

Warranty Program really gave them.

" They're in the business of protecting new home buyers, " says

Donna. " All I can say is if this is the standards that Tarion sets

for builders, by looking at my house and knowing what I know about a

lot of the homes, this problem has got serious. This province has

serious problems with new homes, because these are not standards.

These are slap 'em up, sell 'em and collect the taxes and the

revenue. That's it. "