TORONTO – Tarion is launching interim changes to its Customer Service Standard to better protect homeowners, including introducing grace periods for homeowner timelines, making it easier to submit additional claims and having urgent items addressed sooner.
“Tarion continues to strengthen our consumer protection measures and move forward with improvements to our customer services,” said Peter Balasubramanian, President and CEO of Tarion. “The Customer Service Standard is an important issue raised by the Auditor General of Ontario, and we are confident these changes will have a positive impact on new homeowners.”
Effective September 14, 2020, the following improvements to Tarion’s Customer Service Standard will take effect:
- Increasing homeowners’ ability to access help from Tarion by adding 10-day grace periods to:
- The initial 30-day claim submission period
- The initial 30-day request for conciliation period
- The year-end claim submission period with written evidence the homeowner reported items to their builder during the first year warranty period
- The year-end request for conciliation period
- Allowing homeowners to add additional items to forms during the 30-day and year-end claim submission periods
- Tarion is increasing the types of claims that can be addressed anytime in the first year by expanding the definition of emergency claims to include any water penetration claims
To help homeowners get the assistance they need, Tarion encourages all homeowners to register for MyHome right after occupancy. The MyHome online portal is an easy-to-use and convenient way for homeowners to manage their warranty claims. MyHome provides homeowners with notification of important warranty timelines, the ability to submit warranty claims to both the builder and Tarion simultaneously, and a mechanism to request Tarion’s assistance when needed.
As recommended in the Auditor General of Ontario’s report, Tarion is making these interim changes to increase homeowners’ ability to seek assistance under the new home warranty and protection program. Tarion sought public input on these changes from January to March of 2020, including hosting eight roundtables with over 250 homeowners and receiving over 100 written submissions.
Tarion also recently released their implementation plan on the Auditor General of Ontario’s recommendations and sought public input on additional changes to the Customer Service Standard for 2021 to address the Auditor General’s recommendation 6 in full, including reducing the builder repair period, as well as further consumer protection initiatives coming into force later this year.
Tarion continues to modernize and build a more transparent, fair and accountable new home warranty and protection program.
For media inquiries, please contact: media.inquiries@tarion.com