A warranty period is the fixed window during which the contractor or builder must correct defects in materials and workmanship at no charge. A maintenance period is a separate obligation running the other way — the owner’s duty to operate and upkeep what was built — and neglecting it can itself exclude a claim that would otherwise have been covered.
On a standard-form construction contract, the correction-of-defects obligation runs from the contractor toward the owner. CCDC 2 – 2020 Stipulated Price Contract, the industry-standard prime contract in Canada, sets out “the prerequisites for Ready-for-Takeover” and the contractor’s obligations that follow it — the correction period. (CCDC’s clause text sits behind a paid registration, so treat this as the mechanism, not a quoted clause number.)
On a new Ontario home, the same idea runs under a different name and a different regulator. Tarion tiers statutory coverage into three windows — Year 1 is the “defects in work and materials” period, the “broadest” and “widest range” of issues; Year 2 narrows to a defined list of building systems; Year 7 covers “major structural defects only.” Running underneath all three, in parallel, is the homeowner’s own obligation: “properly maintain your home in order to preserve your warranty coverage” is how Tarion states it, set directly against the builder’s obligation to “ensure that your home is built properly… free from defects in workmanship and materials and major structural defects.” One clock measures the builder’s duty to fix; the other measures the owner’s duty to look after what was handed over — and the two are not the same test.
A buyer signs an Agreement of Purchase and Sale for a new freehold home after July 1, 2023, so the Year-1 defects-in-work-and-materials cap on that home is $400,000 — the current tier under Tarion’s schedule. Eight months after closing, condensation damage shows up around a bathroom exhaust run. If the cause is ordinary workmanship — a bad seal, a poorly sloped duct — it is assessed against that $400,000 Year-1 pool like any other defect. But if the cause traces instead to the homeowner never running the mechanical ventilation the builder installed, that specific claim is a maintenance failure, not a warranty defect — and it is excluded even though the home is still well inside Year 1 and nowhere near the cap. Same building, same 12-month window, two different tests applied to two different causes of the identical symptom.
See also: Occupancy permit vs final inspection, Part 3 vs Part 9 buildings, Finishing holdback vs basic holdback
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