Building and environment

Apart from the risk of explosion due to solvents used in making marijuana oil, or fires caused by electrical malfunctions, a high rate of humidity maintained over long periods is the main cause of damage to a building. High humidity rates cause building materials to rot and moulds to proliferate.

Generally, the sale of a residential complex that is not newly constructed and has not undergone substantial renovations is exempt from GST and QST.

Section 81 of the Regulation respecting brokerage requirements, professional conduct of brokers and advertising provides that a broker or agency executive officer must notably “recommend to the person proposing to acquire an immovable that the person have a full inspection performed by a professional or a building inspector who has professional liability insurance covering fault, error and omission”.

Montréal, February 17, 2004 – The Association des courtiers et agents immobiliers du Québec (ACAIQ) is asking Government to implement, as soon as is feasible, a set of regulations for the building inspection practice. For a majority of people, the purchase of a home represents the greatest investment of a life time. An effective inspection aims at identifying any potential problems in order to ascertain the repairs that may be necessary, thus allowing the buyer to conclude his transaction with full knowledge of the facts and the buyer to greatly diminish the risk of a civil action for hidden defects.

Presently, to qualify as a building inspector, a person need not follow any particular training, nor is there any standardize code of deontology. Certain inspectors voluntarily subscribe professional liability insurance. While tens of thousands of inspections are conducted yearly by a few hundred persons in Quebec, the majority of these persons are no longer able to subscribe professional liability insurance. Indeed, the Quebec Association of Building Inspectors, at the present time, is no longer requiring of its members that they subscribe such a coverage for that very reason.

“Even though the building inspection practice is not legally regulated, a real estate agent must recommend to a buyer that he make his offer to purchase conditional on an inspection,” said Mr. Robert Nadeau, President and CEO of the ACAIQ. “ Given this situation, we have undertaken to define a minimum inspection standard to protect one and all, which standard, in fact, is the strictest in North America.”

While waiting on the Government to act, the ACAIQ and the Quebec Association of Building Inspectors (QABI) have provided forms to buyers and sellers of real estate that, once completed, include all of the relevant and required information (work conducted, plans, permit, invoices, warranties) for a just and successful transaction. Designed as a data collection tool, the Declaration by the seller of the immovable form enables the seller to describe, to the best of his knowledge, the major components of the property involved in the transaction. The ACAIQ believes that the Declaration by the seller of the immovable should, in the future, be an obligation imposed upon the seller under the offer to purchase.

Duration: 5 hours

The Association is issuing recommendations to real estate brokers and agents regarding the iron ochre issue.

The importance to inform their clients selling and buying properties located in these risk zones of the problems related to pyrite and to recommend the specific actions described in this text.