Emergency Situations and Your Warranty

Certain severe conditions constitute an emergency situation. An emergency is any warrantable deficiency within the control of your builder that, if not attended to immediately, would likely result in imminent and substantial damage to your home, or would likely represent an imminent and substantial risk to the health and safety of its occupants.

Examples of emergency situations include:

• Total loss of heat between September 15 and May 15
• Gas leak*
• Total loss of electricity*
• Total loss of water supply*
• Total sewage stoppage*
• Plumbing leakage that requires complete water shut-off
• Major collapse of any part of the home’s exterior or interior structure
• Major water penetration on the interior walls or ceiling
• A large pool of standing water inside the home
• Any situation that in Tarion’s opinion makes the home uninhabitable for health or safety reasons

During this period, it is important that you provide your builder and their tradespeople access to your home.

*Emergency situations due to the failure of a municipality or utility to provide the service are not covered under warranty because they are not within the builder’s control.

What to Do in an Emergency Situation

There are a few things you must do to protect your home’s statutory warranty. Failing to do so could put your home’s statutory warranty in jeopardy.

1. Immediately call the emergency contact telephone number provided by your builder.
2. If you are unable to reach your builder or if your builder does not assess and correct the situation within 24 hours, you should contact us at 1-877-9TARION (1-877-982-7466) for further assistance. 
3. If you cannot reach your builder or Tarion, and have no other option but to have the work completed, you or your contractors should correct the situation. However, only the emergency condition should be corrected and the problem should be documented with pictures taken before and after the repair, if possible.
4. You should not repair any damage to builder-installed materials. If your builder is responsible for the emergency item and you have notified him/her, he/she should resolve the damage to builder-installed materials caused by the emergency condition within 30 days. If your builder fails to do so, we will work with you directly to settle the matter. 
5. To recover costs for the circumstances set out in item 3 above, you will need to submit an Emergency Form to us and your builder as soon as possible after completing the repair. This form is available by contacting Tarion at (1-877-982-7466). Apart from taking steps to protect your property, you should not undertake any repair work without giving your builder 24 hours to assess the problem and take corrective measures.