Tarion has come up in almost every article in this series — the deposit protection, the delayed-closing compensation, the 30-day termination right. What it actually covers once you’ve moved in, and how you file a claim without accidentally losing your rights to one, deserves its own explanation. Most of what’s written about this online still describes a claims process Tarion replaced back in 2024. A lot of buyers are working from outdated information without realizing it.

Here’s the short version. Registration happens automatically for every new home in Ontario. Freehold buyers specifically need to register their purchase with Tarion within 45 days of signing to get full deposit protection. Once you’ve moved in, your warranty runs in three layers. One year for materials and workmanship, two years for building systems, and seven years for major structural defects. Coverage is capped at $400,000 for freehold homes and $300,000 for condo units. Filing a claim means submitting the right form in MyHome, Tarion’s homeowner portal, inside a specific window. Since May 2024, that process is genuinely more forgiving than it used to be, though the hard deadlines that remain are still absolute. Miss one, and that item is gone for good.

Registration and enrollment aren’t quite the same thing, and the distinction matters. Every new home sold by a licensed builder in Ontario is automatically enrolled in the Tarion warranty program. That part isn’t something you apply for. Registration is a separate step specific to freehold buyers. As of purchase agreements signed on or after April 1, 2026, you need to notify Tarion of your purchase within 45 days of signing. Register inside that window and you qualify for full deposit protection under the standard limits. Miss it, and your deposit falls back on a separate, more limited fund instead. Condo buyers don’t need to take this extra step. Condo deposits are protected differently, through the builder’s lawyer trust arrangement we covered in the pillar article.

Filing a claim runs through MyHome, Tarion’s homeowner portal. The process changed meaningfully in May 2024, under what Tarion calls its Customer Service Standard. Your first submission window is called the Initial Form. It gives you 40 days from your warranty start date. That’s up from the 30 days a lot of older guides still describe. Tarion extended it as part of the 2024 changes. From there, you’re not stuck waiting for a single deadline. You can add items to a running list in MyHome throughout your entire first year. There’s a built-in mid-year checkpoint around the six-month mark. That list submits automatically at the one-year mark. A 10-day grace period follows, to catch anything you missed. After that grace period closes, first-year items can’t be added anymore. Two-year items get their own Second-Year Form, submittable any time during year two. Major structural defects get a separate form, usable any time across the full seven-year window.

If your builder doesn’t resolve what you’ve submitted, conciliation is the next step. This also got more flexible in 2024. You can now request a Tarion conciliation any time after a form is submitted, right up until your next submission window opens. That’s a real change from the old rigid 30-day-only request period. Conciliation means Tarion reviews your claim, typically including an inspection, and issues a binding assessment of what’s covered. It’s a real process with real teeth, not a formality. It’s worth using rather than accepting a builder’s informal “we’ll get to it” indefinitely.

Your Pre-Delivery Inspection is where your first-year claim effectively begins, even though it happens before your warranty technically starts. Whatever you document at the PDI is far harder for a builder to dispute later than something you notice for the first time six months in. Bring a phone camera and use it liberally. Photograph scratches, unpainted trim, misaligned cabinet doors, anything that looks off, even if it seems minor in the moment. Once you’ve moved furniture in, a builder can reasonably argue that damage happened after possession, not during construction. A dated PDI photo removes that argument entirely. We’ll cover the PDI itself in more detail in the next article in this series. For now, the habit worth building early is simple. Treat every walkthrough, every deficiency, and every builder conversation as something you’d want written down if you ever needed to prove it happened.

A few numbers are worth having in your head before you ever need to use them. The Initial Form window is 40 days. The mid-year checkpoint lands around day 180. The final submission is automatic at day 365, with a 10-day grace period after. The Second-Year Form covers all of year two. The Major Structural Defect form covers years one through seven. None of these windows extend for any reason short of a formal agreement with Tarion. Treat every one of them as a hard deadline rather than a rough guideline.

Keeping track of all this over seven years is easier than it sounds, as long as you build the habit early. Set calendar reminders for each deadline the moment you take possession, not when you happen to remember. Keep a simple running folder, digital or physical, of every PDI photo, every MyHome submission, every written response from your builder, and every repair confirmation. Most of what goes wrong with a Tarion claim isn’t a coverage dispute. It’s a homeowner who genuinely had a covered issue but couldn’t prove when they noticed it, or missed the window entirely because nothing was tracked. A five-minute habit at move-in prevents almost all of that.

Tarion’s role doesn’t end if your builder runs into serious trouble. If a builder becomes insolvent or fails to honour its warranty obligations, Tarion steps in directly. They either resolve the claim themselves or contract a third party to complete the repair. This is exactly why registration and enrollment matter as much as they do. They’re what connects your specific home, and your specific claim history, to Tarion’s backstop. That matters most if the company that built it isn’t around, or isn’t cooperating, when you need them.

Condo owners should know one more wrinkle: common elements — the lobby, hallways, shared mechanical systems, amenity spaces — are covered separately from your individual unit. Your condo corporation, not you personally, submits those claims. The timeline runs from the date of registration rather than your own possession date, using its own First-Year and Second-Year Common Elements forms. Your board or property management company typically handles this. It’s worth confirming they’re actually tracking those windows, since a missed common-element deadline affects every owner in the building, not just one unit.

Not everything that bothers you about a new home is actually a warranty item, and knowing the difference saves a lot of frustration. New homes settle and dry out over their first year or two. That causes hairline drywall cracks and minor nail pops that fall within Tarion’s published Construction Performance Guidelines, rather than outside them. Larger cracks, recurring problems, or anything affecting function rather than just appearance are a different story and generally are covered. If you’re not sure which category something falls into, submit it anyway inside your window. Let Tarion’s assessment sort it out. A rejected claim costs you nothing, but a deadline you let pass because you assumed something wasn’t covered can cost you the item permanently.

Getting the registration and enrollment side right ties directly back to what we’ve already covered in this series. Your lawyer confirms your Tarion enrolment and the closing adjustments tied to it on closing day itself. That’s also the date your warranty clock actually starts running. If you’re earlier in the process, the full pre-construction timeline and what the whole process actually costs are both worth reading alongside this one. If you haven’t decided whether pre-construction is right for you at all, start with the first article in this series. Or browse our full pre-construction coverage for everything else.