Choosing a Renovation Contractor in Quebec

A licence number painted on a truck proves nothing until you have looked it up yourself in the registry of the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (Quebec’s building authority). And a valid licence does not tell you the contractor is allowed to do your job: the sous-catégorie (licence sub-category) is what tells you that. Here are the checks that hold up, then the three mechanisms that will decide who pays: the holdback, the legal hypothec, and the form you will fill out the day you sell.

Choosing a renovation contractor in Quebec starts with the registry

The RBQ (Régie du bâtiment du Québec, the provincial building regulator) is blunt: any natural or legal person who carries out or has residential renovation work carried out for you is required to hold a licence. Ask for the number, then enter it yourself in the Registre des détenteurs de licence, the licence holders’ registry.

The sous-catégorie, not just the number. The RBQ adds that on top of a valid licence, your contractor must hold the sous-catégories required for the work set out in the contract. A company registered for roofing is not authorized to redo your kitchen. Nobody reads that line, and it is the line that decides whether the cautionnement (the licence security bond) will ever be of use to you.

What the licence record shows. The exact company name, its NEQ, the categories and sous-catégories, the security bond, any restriction on public contracts, the designated representatives and their fields of qualification. And above all, claims against the cautionnement and amounts paid to former clients over the last 5 years. The RBQ spells out what that means: the contractor did not honour the contract and did not reimburse the client.

Two more checks are free: the Quebec enterprise register for registration and directors, and the Office de la protection du consommateur (Quebec’s consumer protection office) tool “Se renseigner sur un commerçant” for demand letters received and interventions by the Office. The RBQ suggests getting 3 quotes, and warns that contractor matching services often provide no additional protection.

CNESST: the compliance attestation and the maître d’oeuvre trap

The CNESST (Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, Quebec’s labour standards and workplace safety board) offers three services: compliance validation before the contract, monitoring of compliance status during the work, and the attestation de conformité at the end, which serves to release the employeur donneur d’ouvrage, the employer who awards the contract, from any liability to pay the assessment owed by the contractor. Mind the wording: no official source lets me state that this release extends to an owner occupant who is not an employer. Ask for the attestation anyway. It tells you whether the contractor is up to date.

The real risk for an owner sits elsewhere. In its publication on defining the boundaries of a construction site, the CNESST writes that where the person responsible for carrying out the whole of the work cannot be identified, the role of maître d’oeuvre, the principal contractor, falls to the owner. Section 2.4.1 of the Safety Code for the construction industry requires the maître d’oeuvre to send the CNESST a notice of opening of the site at least 10 days before activities begin, and whoever sends that notice is presumed to take on the management of workers’ health and safety. Hiring four specialists separately and coordinating the site yourself puts you exactly there. A single contract with a general contractor shifts that responsibility.

What a renovation contract must contain

The RBQ asks you to recheck the licence at the moment of signing, and to make sure the name on the contract matches the exact name of the company that holds it, with the licence number in the contract. Watch the inc. and the ltée. It adds the question everyone forgets: who obtains the municipal permit?

The contract identifies the parties: your contact details, the address of the work, the contractor’s legal name, its full contact details and not just a phone number, its RBQ licence, its NEQ, its GST and QST numbers, and the person managing the project. The total price is itemized: labour, materials, products, transport, insurance, subcontractors, equipment rental.

The OPC adds three further items: the civil liability insurance policy number and its insurer, the undertaking to comply with municipal by-laws and the National Building Code, and the sentence “the work will be performed on or before (date), failing which the merchant undertakes to return the deposit”.

The contract signed in your home. As soon as a contract signed at your home, even at your own express request, covers the sale, installation or repair of doors and windows, thermal insulation, or roofing and exterior cladding, the contractor is considered an itinerant merchant. It may then not provide any service within the 10 days following the day you received your copy, nor ask you for a deposit during that period unless it has delivered goods to you, and you have 10 days to cancel, sometimes up to a year. Some merchants are exempt from this obligation set out in section 255 of the Consumer Protection Act.

Deposits, holdbacks and quittances: the money you keep

The OPC says it without hedging: the law does not specify how the work must be paid for. The RBQ advises the smallest possible deposit. The OPC recommends paying in instalments as the work progresses, with a final payment of 10 to 15% of the total cost once the work is finished, and a cheque made out to “[company name] en fidéicommis”, in trust, if you are asked for a payment more than 2 months in advance.

Article 2122 is the most ignored of the six. If the agreement provides for instalments, the contractor is required, beforehand, to provide you with a statement of the sums paid to subcontractors and suppliers, and of the sums still owed to them. Demand that statement in writing before every payment.

If this work is preparing a sale, set the budget after looking at the likely value of the property with the home value estimator: the ceiling in your sector decides what comes back, as your renovation won’t add what you think explains.

The legal hypothec of construction: paying the contractor is not enough

Article 2726 of the Code civil du Québec creates a legal hypothec in favour of the persons who took part in the construction or renovation of an immovable: architect, engineer, supplier of materials, workman, contractor, subcontractor. It charges only that immovable, and it exists without any need to publish it. Put plainly: you can have paid your general contractor in full and still see your house charged because it never paid its plumber.

Article 2728 sets the limit that protects you. For those who did not contract with you, the hypothec is limited to the work, materials or services that follow written notice of the contract given to the owner, and a workman is not required to give notice of his contract. So the letter from a supplier you have never heard of is not paperwork: it is the notice that triggers your right to hold money back.

Article 2727 gives the calendar: the hypothec subsists for 30 days after the work is completed without being published, it is preserved if a notice describing the immovable and stating the amount of the claim is registered within that period and then served on the owner, and it is extinguished six months after the work is completed unless the creditor publishes an action or registers a prior notice of exercise.

Article 2123 closes the loop. At the time of payment, you may hold back from the contract price a sufficient amount to pay the claims of the workmen and of those who gave you notice of their contract, and that holdback is valid for as long as the contractor has not given you a quittance, a written release of those claims. You lose the right if it furnishes you with sufficient security. A forgotten legal hypothec is one of the files that derail at the notary’s office: seven recurring failures gives others.

Paying cash: what the discount takes away

The cautionnement can only be claimed if the contractor held a valid licence at the time of signing or of performance. The RBQ describes the path: agreement, demand letter, judgment, then a claim against the cautionnement, and it warns that your chances of being compensated drop sharply without a court judgment. Under $15,000, that means the Small Claims Division. The judgment must target the company whose name and licence number appear on the contract, not the individual who owns it. Without a written contract, you do not even have that name.

The Code civil warranties do not disappear: article 2120 holds the contractor and the subcontractor jointly liable for one year for poor workmanship existing at the time of acceptance or discovered within the year. But a warranty is exercised against someone, with an agreed price, a date and a description of the work. Paid in cash with no invoice, you have none of that to put before a judge. And do not count on the mandatory warranty plan: GCR covers exclusively entirely new residential buildings, and its exclusions name renovation.

Undocumented work: the bill arrives at resale

The Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble form, the seller’s declarations on the immovable, asks question D14.4: has significant work been carried out, for example a change to the division of the rooms or a change of floor covering? If yes, you must describe it, state whether plans and specifications were prepared, and answer sub-question b): were the required permits issued for each of those jobs?

Three or eight years later, that is where the cash discount gets paid. A “no” to sub-question b) becomes a negotiating item, a widened inspection, sometimes a regularization to obtain from the municipality before signing at the notary’s. An “I don’t know” is no better: it sends the buyer looking, and the buyer finds. A folder holding the contract, the invoices, the permit and the quittances, by contrast, gets handed over in ten seconds. The DV 00001 form is the moment your site documentation turns into a number in an offer.

Frequently asked questions

His licence is “being processed”. Can I sign? The cautionnement is claimable if the licence was valid at signing or at performance. An application in process is not a licence. Wait for the registry, with the right sous-catégories.

He offers a discount if I pay cash, with no invoice. You lose proof of the price, the date and the work, and therefore the ability to obtain the judgment that precedes a claim against the cautionnement. And you lose the document that will answer question D14.4 at resale.

I paid the contractor and a supplier says it was never paid. If it had given you written notice of its contract, it can publish a legal hypothec within 30 days of the end of the work. Talk to a lawyer or a notary quickly: it is the immovable that is targeted.

I’m renovating a condo, is it the same? The same licence and contract rules apply, but the declaration of co-ownership adds a limit: renovating a Quebec condo says what a co-owner may actually touch.

To go further, read your renovation won’t add what you think and the Déclarations du vendeur form.

Work planned before you list? Write to me: we look at what comes back in your sector, and at the documents the buyer will ask for.

Georges Matar

Residential Real Estate Broker · RE/MAX DU CARTIER INC.

Contact Georges