Does a title insurer have to pay to repair a home, or can it demolish the offending work and pay the lost value instead? In a $1.1M TitlePLUS dispute over unpermitted construction on a Winnipeg home, the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba answered (2025 MBKB 131). The decision is persuasive only in Ontario and is now under appeal.
Ontario has four licensed title insurers, and unlike in the United States, no regulator standardizes what their policies say. Having acted for homeowners insured by each of them, the firm’s insurance litigation group has seen how a difference of two or three words can decide a future claim. The harder question is for the lawyers selling these policies at closing: on what basis is that choice being made?
When a real estate lawyer orders a title insurance policy for a client, are they quietly stepping into the role of an insurance agent? Read against the Insurance Act’s definition of “agent” and the fact that lawyers are not members of the Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario, the question is sharper than it looks, and it is one reason a homeowner should not rely on the lawyer who sold the policy to tell them whether they have a claim under it.
In this concluding commentary on the firm’s title insurance work, we summarize the series and offer practical advice to homeowners and homebuyers. The key lesson: residential title insurance policies cover far more than title alone, including many physical problems with a home that owners assume fall outside their coverage.
The “Police Powers” exclusion in a Canadian title insurance policy reads as though it swallows almost everything, and some insurers deny claims on that basis. In fact it has to be parsed closely: it carves out a long list of Covered Risks, including building permit and local authority search coverage. This commentary walks through how the exclusion actually works and why a denial that leans on it should not be taken at face value.
The “Building Permit” and “Local Authority Search” coverages in a residential title insurance policy come with exclusions homeowners need to recognize. This commentary looks at two of them, “suffered, created or assumed” and “known to the insured but not the insurer,” and explains how the duty of utmost good faith and the policy’s defined terms shape what is actually covered.
Local Authority Search coverage is one of the more useful protections in a residential title insurance policy, and one insurers tend to read narrowly. This commentary traces how the coverage developed, why a building permit that was only “opened” is not the same as one properly closed, and what that means when a homeowner later discovers unpermitted or uninspected work.
You saved for years, bought a home, and then discovered it was not built properly, perhaps not even safe to live in. This commentary explains “Building Permit” coverage under a residential title insurance policy: what it covers when a previous owner built without a required permit, and how it fits alongside claims against vendors, builders, and inspectors.
Title insurance claims are on the rise in Ontario, and open building permits are one of the most common triggers. In the first of a series, our Insurance Law group explains what a title insurance policy actually covers, how covered-risk wording is interpreted, and why one Toronto homeowner’s building permit claim was denied.
Since the Court of Appeal decided Bowman v Martineau, the case is often cited for the idea that damages in professional negligence are always measured by diminution in value. In this in-depth commentary, Paul Cahill argues that is a misreading and sets out how damages in these cases should actually be quantified, including when cost of repair, rather than diminution in value, is the right measure.