Toronto, ON, May 27, 2005 – Residential home builder Roland Boissonneault, an officer of 840441 Ontario Inc. (operating as Modular Systems of North Bay), pled guilty on May 17, 2005 in North Bay Provincial Court on five counts each of failing to register and failing to enrol a new home with Tarion Warranty Corporation (Tarion).  Mr. Boissonneault received a jail term of five months on all counts, to be served concurrently with a six month jail sentence he received in July 2004 for similar charges. Modular Systems was also fined a total of $7,500.

Under the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act (“the Act”) every builder or vendor of a new home sold in the Province of Ontario must be registered with Tarion and a builder must enrol each new home prior to its construction. A failure to register as a vendor/builder and/or a failure to enrol each new home is an offence under the Act.

“Jail sentences for illegal building are rare. The fact that the courts delivered a second jail term against Mr. Boissonneault shows that our courts will not tolerate repeat offenders who ignore the law,” said David Roberts, Director of Enforcement at Tarion. “Mr. Boissonneault has a history of ignoring Tarion’s rules and regulations, and we have paid out over $100,000 in claims related to his illegal building activities. Despite having his building license revoked years ago, he continues to illegally build new homes. We hope this latest jail sentence will help him to get the message that illegal building is unacceptable.”

In 2004, Tarion’s Enforcement team laid 993 charges against illegal builders.  A total of $575,000 in fines was levied by the courts and two repeat offenders received jail time. Mr. Boissonneault was one of those offenders.

Details about illegal home builder convictions and license revocations are available through Tarion’s website at www.tarion.com or by calling 1-877-9TARION. In addition, consumers are encouraged to visit the “Find a Builder” section of Tarion’s website to confirm that a builder is registered and to obtain additional information about their after-sales service performance.      

If you suspect that illegal building is taking place in your community, you can anonymously report this information by calling Tarion toll-free at 1-800-786-6497 or by sending an email to enforcement@tarion.com.

About Tarion

Tarion Warranty Corporation is a private corporation established in 1976 to administer the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act which outlines the warranty protection that all builders must provide to new home and condominium buyers in Ontario. Tarion licenses home builders and ensures that they abide by this legislation, and that consumers are protected when builders fail to fulfill their warranty obligations. Since its inception, over 1.3 million homes have been enrolled by the Corporation.

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For more information, please contact: Janice Wong, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, Corporate Affairs at 416-229-3863 or janice.wong@tarion.