We acted for homeowners who had commenced an action against their builder to recover the cost of rectifying significant water penetration deficiencies to their $5 million custom home which were discovered more than three-years after the construction was complete, when they retained a roofer to perform certain roof upgrades.

We successfully defended the builder’s motion to declare the action expired and, also, obtained a “boomerang” order that the action was, in fact, obtained in time.  The builder argued that the owners had discovered their claim when, upon completion of additional work, it had refused to perform which it said was neither necessary nor required by code.

The case is significant because it deals with the “plausible inference of liability” test for determining when the limitations clock starts ticking, as that test had been recently established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Grant Thornton LLP v. New Brunswick, 2021 SCC 31.