PQ to reform home guarantees

New regulations to reform Quebec’s new home-guarantee program — long-dismissed by consumer activists as biased in favour of the construction industry — were published Wednesday by the Parti Québécois.

As expected, the new regulations would end construction-industry control over guarantee plans, which must be offered by developers when selling new homes or condos in smaller buildings. The guarantees protect consumers against faulty construction, or lost deposits.

Yvon Boivin, a spokesman for a group representing hundreds of Trois-Rivières homeowners who’ve discovered pyrrhotite in their foundations, has long complained that under the current system, consumers have been forced to fight to get compensation from builders.

That’s because plans managed by groups like the Association provinciale des constructeurs d’habitations du Québec (APCHQ) favour industry at the expense of consumers, Boivin and other critics say.

Under the PQ’s draft regulation, the guarantee plan would be taken over by a non-profit organization run by a board made up of 13 “independent” appointees. Of the 13 board members: Three would represent building contractors

Three would represent consumers

Two would be building professionals One would be a legal professional One would be from the financial sector

The remaining three would be from the government sector.

To ensure the non-profit group remains impartial, “no member of the board of directors … may be in the employment of a contractors’ association, a consumer association or a professional order,” the draft says.

The draft regulations will now go through a consultation period and are subject to approval by the PQ cabinet.