The provincial government has empowered the HCRA — a not-for-profit agency appointed by the province to enforce the New Housing Permits Act — to impose increased fines to curb “immoral and egregious” practices. This is on top of the original fines the authority was empowered to impose from July 2021. The agency’s disciplinary committee is just now in the early stages of hearing its first case, which is unrelated to these matters. While the authority says handling complaints properly takes time and resources, would-be buyers say in the meantime, they are stuck with deposits tied up in a highly competitive housing market. “HCRA is not doing its job to hold developers accountable and the Ontario government is not doing its job to ensure first-time home buyers get the home they paid for,” said University-Rosedale MPP Jessica Bell, the provincial NDP. housing critic. “Homebuyers deserve protection. If you’ve signed a contract saying a developer will build a house at a set price, that contract needs to be honored. The Ontario government needs to make sure those developers honor the contract.”
Investigations take time, HCRA says
In its first full year of operation, HCRA received 800 complaints, spokeswoman Tess Lin said in an email to CBC News. The authority’s disciplinary committee only received its first case on March 15, 2022. A hearing in that case is still scheduled, Lin said. HCRA also has other disciplinary tools at its disposal, such as written warnings, mandatory training, license conditions, and worst-case scenarios revocation or suspension of licenses. Lin also said provincial law prevents the authority from saying whether any developers are under investigation for voiding a deal or demanding more money from buyers. It took a long time for the HCRA disciplinary panel to hear its first case because “allegations of this nature are often complex and require time for our team to properly review and recommend a course of action,” he said. “HCRA has a responsibility to ensure administrative and procedural fairness to all parties, so it can take a considerable amount of time to gather information about a complaint — from this perspective, the time that has passed is not out of the question of the rule of the regulatory world,” Lin said. NDP MPP and housing critic Jessica Bell says the province and HCRA are failing to protect Ontario homebuyers. (CBC) But the length of time the search process can take can be painful for families who feel strong-armed by a developer, said Gayle Dudeck, who has worked in Durham Region’s land registry for more than 30 years. Now retired, Dudeck contacted HCRA to file a complaint after her son’s contract for a home in an Elora, Ont., development was canceled by the developer in January after she first signed an agreement the year before. She told CBC News it took five weeks for an HCRA investigator to email her and ask for her son’s address. Seven months after the initial complaint, she said no one from the authorities has even spoken to her son. She said HCRA isn’t doing enough, fast enough, to curb these practices — and in the meantime, her son and his partner are left in the lurch, hoping for some kind of resolution. “They can’t wait three to five years to get this settled,” Dudeck said. “Most people can’t… it seems so unfair. “They can’t even talk about it half the time because they’re so upset about it. All their hopes and dreams have been crushed.”
The province points to fines as part of the solution
In an emailed statement, HCRA spokeswoman Catherine Morrison said the authority “appreciates[s] the urgency that many homebuyers feel when they have filed a complaint. “HCRA’s complaint system operates on two fundamental principles: providing consumers with a clear pathway to raise concerns and ensuring a fair hearing for all parties involved,” he said. “This takes time and resources, which we devote to the complaints process.” Premier Doug Ford said developers would have to shoulder the cost of price increases if they have already signed contracts and agreed to a final price. Ford said earlier this month that it has “zero tolerance” for developers who rack up the fees. (Evan Mitsui/CBC) Premier Doug Ford has previously slammed developers who cancel projects and overcharge homebuyers after contracts are signed, and said he has “zero tolerance” for any practice. “We will continue to monitor it and make sure they are not allowed to go in there and pull the rug out from under them [buyers]Ford said at a press conference earlier this month. When asked if the HCRA is doing enough to help homebuyers who feel it has not fined those issues, Department of Public and Business Services spokesman Sebastian Skamski said the provincial government “has made it clear the consequences they will face the bad factors. as a result of the measures we have put in place, including significantly increased fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single home and the suspension or revocation of licences.” Skamski also pointed to a recent opinion issued by the HCRA on the issue and comments by Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark during the Association of Ontario Municipalities conference last week. “We unequivocally expect all builders to operate in a professional manner, with fairness, honesty and integrity to consumers,” Clark said, again noting “heavy fines for builders who try to rip off homebuyers.” The HCRA, meanwhile, says in its just-published annual report for 2021-2022 that it is still in the midst of “collecting key data” to determine performance measures on issues such as open and closed complaints, alongside the rate successful prosecutions. with those numbers expected in next year’s report.
