Achi news desk-
New homes being built by Albion Building Consultant Inc. at 57A Jeavons Ave, Scarborough.Shane Dingman/The Globe and Mail
The surprising measures Ontario’s new home regulator is taking to deal with a Toronto builder with a history of sanctions highlights the challenge posed by unlicensed builders.
On March 19, the Home Building Regulatory Authority (HCRA) froze the assets of Albion Building Consultant Inc. Court documents said an investigation found evidence that the company had taken money for as many as 53 separate homes in Toronto that did not have the proper permits. to build or sell.
The number of homes allegedly illegally built by Albion is many times greater than previously believed, which the HCRA said prompted it to use rarely used powers.
Freezing assets was not punitive, but “holding any buyer funds in trust … to prohibit [Albion] from transferring any assets [and] to retain the deposits for the benefit of homebuyers,” said Wendy Moir, chief executive officer and registrar of the HCRA.
Ontario’s new home regulations are split between two delegated authorities, HCRA and Tarion. HCRA, launched in 2021, licenses builders and polices their behaviour. Tarion approves the number of homes a builder can enroll in its home warranty program, an insurance pool that protects new home deposits and acts as a back-up for complaints about builder defects.
If homes are built or sold without permits, they cannot be registered in the Tarion program, which limits the buyers’ ability to use them if the builder fails to do so.
“The HCRA is taking appropriate action to protect the public and send a clear message to the industry that those who act illegally or unethically will be held accountable,” Ms Moir said.
The bosses of Albion – Zamal Hossain and his wife Farida Haque – have already been convicted four times of regulatory offenses relating to 16 homes built without permits between 2016 and 2022. But in an application for a search warrant the HCRA filed on February 20 with the Ontario Court of Justice, the agency outlines dozens of other new homes that Albion allegedly sold or built. Those claims have yet to be proven in court.
The warrant is only the second warrant the relatively new agency has served. It allowed investigators to comb through Albion’s office at 3028 Danforth Ave. in Toronto to obtain any records of contracts and agreements with buyers about the homes, contracts with trades and sub-trades, contact information for the new home buyers and any correspondence between Albion and buyers about the homes. new homes.
“We got a lot of information from them – a van full of documents,” said Ms Moir. “We have hundreds of documents to go through,” he said. “This is one of our biggest investigations.”
Albion’s business has been to tear down a single home, subdivide the lot and then build two new homes on the old site. The HCRA warrant suggests that the majority of the 53 suspected unlicensed homes are lot subdivisions, located primarily in Scarborough. It is not yet clear how many homes have been completed by the company.
In the past, Tarion extended a license to build homes for Mr Hossain and Albion, but limited the number of new homes he was allowed to register on his insurance programme.
The evidence presented by HCRA for the search warrant suggests that the actual number of unlicensed homes built by Albion was many times higher than Mr Hossain admitted.
Mr Hossain did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but in 2023 he offered this comment to The Globe on his previous convictions: “Yes, I broke the law. I made the house without the Tarion [new home warranty]. … I didn’t murder anybody.”
According to Ms Moir, there is no clear count of how many unlicensed builders there are in the province. It states that it is not illegal to build your own home without a permit. But if you hire a contractor to do it, he must be licensed.
“We have seen an 80 per cent increase in complaints about illegal buildings since last year,” he said. “I don’t think it’s more illegal construction, we think it’s more awareness.”
Neil Rodgers, Interim CEO of the Ontario Home Builders Association, said the Albion case highlights the need for regulatory solutions to address illegal sales where an unlicensed builder takes deposits to build homes he is not entitled to. sell or build them.
“There must be a proactive regulatory regime,” said Mr. Rodgers. “There needs to be a system in place that allows for what I’m going to call early warning tracking, where buyers or their agents or solicitors could register their purchase and sale agreements with HCRA or Tarion. If a pattern emerges it gives the regulator an opportunity to intervene much sooner.”
Mr. Rodgers compares this requirement for buyers to share the details of their purchase and sale agreement with HCRA or another agency similar to posting a warranty card for an electronic device, and says he is calling on the province for consultations on changes to the requirements.
Karen Somerville of the consumer lobby group Canadians for Properly Built Homes (CPBH) does not agree that the burden should be on consumers to find unlicensed builders, and points to different screening where pilot programs have already the past: if the construction allows.
“CPBH proposes that the municipality has a responsibility to notify HCRA given the information available in the building permit application,” Ms Somerville said. “This would lead to government organizations working together using information they already have to track down unlicensed builders.”
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