2011 Toronto Star Columns

Should Ontario consumers always have the benefit of independent legal advice
when they obtain title insurance for their real estate purchases?

When you’re selling a house known as a link-semi, is it wrong to advertise it
as a detached home?

Bob Aaron bob@aaron.ca In a landmark consumer protection initiative, the Tarion Warranty Corp. has proposed a requirement that builder purchase agreements set out in one place all the extras that can be added to the price of a new home. (Tarion regulates the...

The seller property disclosure statement remains a hot topic in the real
estate community as Manitoba has now made them compulsory, while Britain has
gone in the other direction to repeal the law requiring them in every
transaction.

Toronto
residents who are proud to live in areas such as Harbourfront, Davisville
Village, Leslieville, Chaplin Estates, Hogg’s Hollow and Corktown are bound to
be disappointed to learn that their neighbourhood names have been wiped off the
map by the City of Toronto and the Toronto Real Estate Board.

A court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada highlights the importance of homeowners keeping accurate records of their possessions in the event an insurance claim becomes necessary.

As I see it, the real issue in this provincial election should be whether the Ontario government is able and willing to act decisively and promptly to maintain the rule of law and protect the citizens of the province and their homes from lawbreakers.

I received an interesting call earlier this month. A reader lives next to a
construction site and the builder’s crane is continually passing through the air
space above her home. She wanted to know if she was entitled to any
compensation.

A Superior Court decision released last month underscores the importance of reviewing condominium floor plans before completing the purchase of a unit. The trial of the action took 42 court days and involved nine lawyers representing the parties. I was one of the many...

With thousands of new Toronto condominiums being completed each year,
investor purchasers are putting many of them on the market, anxious to cash in
on their profits. Unfortunately, the paperwork involved in selling them, either
during construction or after completion and registration, is complex and
problematic.

One of the lesser known benefits of title insurance is that the insurer is obligated to provide and pay for the legal costs of defending the insured’s title if a third party sues claiming an interest in the land. That was the issue in the case of Knapman v. Deweerd...

Last month I received an email from a firm billing itself as a “very
successful real estate investment firm that invests heavily in something
called rent-to-own.”

One of the biggest challenges facing the new home industry today is the
problem of illegal construction and sale of houses. In Ontario, it is illegal
for a homebuilder to enter into an agreement of purchase and sale or a
construction contract with a purchaser if the builder is not registered with the
Tarion Warranty Corp.

The town of Port Hope, featured two weeks ago in a Saturday Star story on the impact of low-level nuclear contamination affecting local homeowners, is not the only Ontario municipality saddled with the burden of widespread soil contamination. The community of Cartier...

An Ontario court has found a real estate agent partially liable in damages for failing to review a home inspector’s report carefully with his purchaser client. The court found that the agent’s duty did not end with the recommendation that the purchaser obtain a home...

If there ever was any doubt about the risks to sellers and real estate agents of using the Seller Property Information Statement (SPIS), a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal earlier this month would seem to have put them to rest once and for all. In the case of...

Does a seller have an obligation to disclose to a purchaser with young children the fact that a person convicted of child pornography lives across the street? That was the issue in a court case which came before Justice Alexandra Hoy in March of this year. The...

The governing bodies of the notary and legal professions in Quebec have
launched a lawsuit against several title insurance companies over the
preparation and registration of mortgages and discharges of mortgages on real
estate in the province.

In my column on April 2, I wrote about a study by Halifax Home Insurance in
the U.K. which reported that more than 360,000 Britons, or one in 10 people,
moved home because of irritating neighbours.

At any given time, at least some of the courts in Ontario are occupied with
disputes between neighbours. Based on the current law reports that come across
my desk, these disputes usually involve noise, boundary disputes, weeds,
garbage, animals, harassment, smoking, or parking issues.