It surfaces when you sell
Buyers' lawyers and inspectors ask. An open or missing permit becomes a condition, a holdback, or a reason to walk — usually days before closing, when you have the least leverage.
Permits and compliance
The permit is cheaper than the consequence.
Permit fees are a rounding error against unpermitted work discovered during a sale, a declined insurance claim, or a buyer walking away. Here is which work typically needs one, and what to ask your municipality.
Read this before the checker
Nobody on the internet can tell you whether you need a permit.
Requirements come from the Ontario Building Code and are administered by each municipality, with thresholds that differ and change. What this tool does is sort common work into likelihood tiers and give you the specific question to put to the building department—so the call takes five minutes instead of twenty.
Tick the work you are planning and the likely permit position appears here, with the questions to put to your municipality.
Why it matters later
Unpermitted work does not stay buried.
This is the part homeowners underestimate. The work gets done, the problem appears years later, and by then it costs far more than the permit ever would have.
Insurance can decline
A claim arising from unpermitted work is a conversation you do not want to have with an adjuster after a fire or a flood.
The municipality can order it opened
Work covered without inspection may have to be exposed so it can be inspected — after the drywall, the tile and the paint are on.
The next owner inherits it
Disclosure obligations do not disappear because the work was done years ago, and an open permit stays attached to the property.
Four rules that keep you clean
Permits belong to the contractor.
When a contractor asks the homeowner to pull the permit, they are shifting responsibility for code compliance onto the person least able to carry it — and quietly removing themselves from the inspection record.
- The contractor doing the work applies, in their own name
- Confirm the permit is closed and the final inspection passed
- Keep the ESA certificate of inspection for any electrical work
- File every permit, certificate and inspection report with the deed
Already done work without one?
It is usually fixable, and better fixed before you list.
Retroactive permits, inspections of exposed work and engineer’s letters are all routine. The expensive version is discovering it during a transaction. If you are planning to sell in the next couple of years, deal with it now while you still have time and choices.
Guidance only — confirm with the authority having jurisdiction.
Nothing on this page states a permit requirement as settled. Requirements derive from the Ontario Building Code, municipal bylaws and zoning, all of which differ between Oakville, Burlington, Milton and every other municipality, and all of which change. No fee, threshold or exemption here should be relied upon. Confirm your specific project with your municipal building department before starting work, and obtain professional advice where the project warrants it.
A straightforward first conversation
Unsure whether past work on your home was permitted?
Tell me where you are in the process. We’ll discuss the property, the market, and the questions that matter most to you.