Claims involving building permits, unpermitted construction, and municipal permit oversight, including how they are treated under title insurance policies.
A Puslinch century farmhouse looked beautifully renovated. The structural work had no building permit, and no one disclosed it. In Slatkovsky v Machado, the Ontario Superior Court held both the vendors and their double-ending agent liable, awarding the buyers $150,318 and confirming that the owner’s permit duty cannot be passed off to a contractor.
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.
When a homeowner takes on a major renovation, they can step into the legal shoes of a builder, and the duties that come with it cannot be signed away in a standard form contract. In Oliva v Dickson, 2025 ONSC 6666, the court mapped the intersection of contract, the Ontario Building Code, and the duty owed to later purchasers. The decision draws on Breen v Lake of Bays and Wesley v Geneau, two matters in which Davidson Cahill Morrison LLP acted for the successful parties.
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.
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.
In Huether v Sharpe, the Township of McMurrich Monteith argued that negligence claims over a 1980s home build were barred by the 15-year ultimate limitation period. The Superior Court disagreed: because the Township never closed the building permit, its duty to monitor the construction was ongoing, so the limitation period did not bar the claim and the summary judgment motion was dismissed. The decision is under appeal.
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.