HOMEOWNERS SEEK COMPENSATION
Céline Benssoussen in front of her St-Lazare home on Tuesday. She is one of a growing list of homeowners in the town whose foundations are sinking. Her house has developed cracks in its foundation and she will have to spend $70,000 for repairs. She and others are asking the local government and province to help finance the work.
St-Lazare homeowners whose foundations are sinking due to unstable soil conditions are seeking help from the city to sway the province to provide a compensation program, while others are considering a potential class-action lawsuit.
Resident Céline Benssoussen said soil shifting under her foundation has caused havoc on her home on Des Semences Street since it was built about 12 years ago. She first noticed problems with her home in the Champêtre district about six years ago, though it probably went undetected for sometime.
“There are cracks in the home that have to be repaired, and repairs on the exterior are needed as well,” she said. “I think that there’s at least $60,000 worth of repairs required at my home.”
Benssoussen said the municipality should have been aware of the unstable soil conditions in the area, noting the issue was raised when a site for a new elementary school was being considered in the same time period as when her home was built. To protect residents, she maintains the municipality should be responsible for making sure soil conditions are suitable before approving plans submitted for any proposed residential developments.
“They should have warned residents of the sinking problem,” she said. “We all built our homes here without knowing.”
Problems with her home will persist until the foundation can be stabilized, Benssoussen said, adding she is exploring the possibility of filing a class-action lawsuit
“It’s under study,” she said of potential legal recourse.
She noted the problem of shifting soil could affect hundreds of homes in three nearby residential developments.
Joanne Ackland, who lives in the Domaine des Ancêtres area, is seeking help from city officials to lobby the provincial government to offer a subsidy program to defray repair bills facing homeowners like herself.
“We really only found that we had a serious problem in the past two years,” she said, adding her house was built in 2003.
“It first started with a small crack in the basement,” she recalled. “It got considerably worse.”
Now, some windows don’t open and significant cracks can be spotted around door frames, she said.
It could cost between $50,000 and $80,000 to install pylons to stabilize the foundation, Ackland said.
“If we knew it was a risky area, we would never have bought a house here,” she said.
Ackland said at this point, she hopes city officials could be more proactive to help residents facing costly repairs for sinking homes.
“I’m hoping they will pressure the government to say we have a problem here in our town and could you open some of the subsidies. It won’t cover everything, but maybe at least give us 20 per cent,” she said. “In my view, it’s part the town’s responsibility because they are the ones that gave out the (building) permits. They should have done their homework and made sure this land was good.”
Ackland said there is a time limit of a few years to seek compensation from building contractors, adding she managed to obtain some compensation but not enough to cover the anticipated foundation repair bill.
Mayor Robert Grimaudo said the municipality has a moral obligation, but not a legal one, to assist homeowners facing hefty foundation stabilization bills due to soil conditions.
The mayor said while he is sympathetic, not much can be done in the short term since there are no longer any provincial subsidies available to help families dealing with sinking homes, which were mainly built 10 to 15 years ago.
“A lot of those homes, the contractor realized later on that there were some problematic areas and they either compensated the families or fixed the problem,” he said. “There are still some homes that have moved a couple of inches and it’s serious. They’re not settling straight. The reality is that these homes were built on unstable ground. They could have been built differently. Unfortunately, I can’t speak what was done 15 or 20 years ago. The town is still looking into subsidy programs offered by the government. But the government is not (currently) offering subsidies for families who are in this situation. Some years ago they did have one. We’re looking to see if there is something the provincial government can do to help. We’re still digging.”
The mayor added that it is a buyer-beware situation and that the town is not responsible for these sinking homes built over a decade ago, adding municipal funds cannot be deployed to offer repair grants.
“We do not have a legal obligation,” he said. “We have a moral obligation to help these people find a solution.”
Meanwhile, the city has regulations in place now to make sure pylons or other subterranean measures are deployed as required to stabilize foundations for an ongoing housing development near the intersection of Ste-Angelique Rd. and Cité-des-Jeunes Blvd., an area where an $11-million Frenchlanguage elementary school is currently being constructed.
“We are aware there are problematic areas of St-Lazare when it comes to clay or unsteady ground,” the mayor said. “We’ve (now) obliged the developers, the contractors, to build accordingly. We demand they have geometric tests done, and a report is submitted for every single home that they are building. A lot of these structures are going down with a pylon. They’re going right down to the rock. There are ways to build on this type of ground for the very long-term.”