Smoke Alarms in Quebec: The Obligation and the Insurer

Your smoke alarm complies with your city’s by-law. That says nothing about what your insurer expects of you. Two sets of obligations overlap here, and most owners only know the first one. Here are both, in Montreal and in Laval, and the point where they meet: after a loss.

The municipal by-law and the insurance contract do not measure the same thing

The city sets a safety floor and enforces it with a fine. The insurer prices a risk. Among the seven factors that set your premium, the Bureau d’assurance du Canada, the insurance industry’s national association, includes the features of the home, where it asks in so many words: “Is it equipped with a burglar alarm system and fire or carbon monoxide detectors? Do they allow activated remote monitoring?”

No municipal by-law requires remote monitoring. No insurer issues a statement of offence. You have to satisfy both.

The smoke alarm obligation in Quebec starts in your city’s by-law

In Montreal. The Règlement sur le Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (RCG 12-003), the by-law on the city’s fire service, requires the alarm to be installed, maintained and in good working order. Every dwelling must have at least one per storey, basement included. For buildings constructed after June 2015, an alarm must also be located in each room where people sleep and between those rooms and the rest of the storey.

The location is precise: on the ceiling or between 10 and 30 cm from it, and in the middle of the corridor if the storey has bedrooms. Across the agglomeration, residential buildings constructed before 1985 must be equipped with lithium alarms with a non-removable 10 year battery, unless they already have 120 volt electric alarms.

One detail almost nobody knows: in apartment buildings, rooming houses and condominiums, the alarms’ proper functioning has to be verified and recorded in a register at least once a year.

In Laval. By-law L-12137 requires a functioning alarm on every storey of a dwelling unit or a dwelling. In residential buildings, the non-removable 10 year lithium battery is mandatory as a replacement for the 9 volt battery. And in buildings constructed after 1985, all alarms must be electrically connected in accordance with the Code de construction du Québec.

The date of manufacture, not the date of purchase. Both cities say the same thing: the alarm is replaced 10 years after the date of manufacture printed on the casing, and without delay if no date appears on it. The Bâtiment chapter of the Régie du bâtiment du Québec’s Code de sécurité imposes the same deadline.

The amounts above are for a first offence. In Laval, two cases have their own tariff: $80 for a tenant who fails to maintain their alarm, and $250 for the absence of a non-removable lithium battery. The city also specifies that the fine applies for each dwelling or room concerned. In a triplex, the multiplication changes the order of magnitude.

The carbon monoxide alarm: where it is mandatory

Carbon monoxide is released when an appliance burns a fuel: natural gas, propane, heating oil, wood, gasoline. Colourless and odourless, it can only be detected with an alarm.

In Laval, every property has to be equipped with one where there is a combustion appliance or direct access to an indoor parking garage, and in a multi-dwelling building the owner must install one in each of the dwellings. In Montreal, the fire service states the same rule for residential, rental, supervised and seniors’ buildings, and recommends an appliance bearing the seal of a recognized body such as CSA, ULC, cUL or cETL.

At the provincial level, the Bâtiment chapter of the Code de sécurité uses the same trigger and requires a device compliant with standard CAN/CSA-6.19 with a built-in alarm. Watch the scope, though: that chapter covers apartment buildings, condominiums, hotels, motels and rooming houses, not the detached single family home. For that one, the municipal by-law decides, and it differs from one city to the next.

Owner or tenant: who installs the smoke alarm, who maintains it

The split is written into the lease. The mandatory form of the Tribunal administratif du logement, Quebec’s rental board, contains this sentence in section B: “The lessor and the lessee undertake, according to the responsibilities of each, to comply with the regulations concerning the presence and proper functioning of one or more smoke alarms in the dwelling and in the building.”

The lessor must deliver the dwelling in a good state of habitability and comply with the laws on safety and sanitation, under articles 1854, 1910, 1911 and 1912 of the Civil Code. The lessee must comply with those same laws and give notice of a defect, under article 1866.

In practice, Montreal speaks of a shared responsibility: the owner supplies and installs at the required locations, the occupant maintains and tests the device with the test button once a month. Laval adds that the tenant must inform the owner of any absence or defect, and settles the battery question for carbon monoxide: the occupant keeps the device in working order, the owner replaces it when it is defective.

The prevention visit: what the firefighter checks

These visits flow from the risk coverage plan, and the ministère de la Sécurité publique sets their minimum content.

Seven items must at minimum be verified on each alarm: certification by a recognized body such as CSA or ULC, the date of manufacture, the required number, the condition of the device, unpainted and unaltered, the location, the functioning and the primary and secondary power supply. The guide strongly recommends adding the carbon monoxide alarm as soon as a risk exists: wood heating, gas cooking, an attached garage.

Two practical points. The programme’s cycle may not exceed seven years, and the ministry recommends a maximum of five: the visit is not annual. It takes place at reasonable hours, the Code municipal speaking of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and any non-compliance has to be explained to you before the person leaves the premises.

If you are buying, the full sequence of checks before the offer is gathered in the buyer’s guide.

What the insurer asks for beyond the smoke alarm

Here the register changes. Before the contract is concluded, and at renewal, you have to give the insurer all the relevant information that could influence its decision to insure and the amount of the premium. This is a duty to disclose, not a duty to equip.

Éducaloi describes the sanction precisely. In the case of a false declaration, the insurer will not have to compensate you if it shows that you deliberately lied or that it would have refused to insure you had it known the truth. Otherwise you are compensated, but less than if the declaration had been accurate. You must also inform it of a situation you created that aggravates the risk: it may then adjust the premium, and you have 30 days to accept it, failing which the insurance ends.

Note what that does not say. A missing alarm does not automatically void coverage. The question, after a loss, will be what you had declared and what your contract required of you. The Autorité des marchés financiers points out that the contract can impose concrete risk reduction obligations, and that exclusions are read in the policy, not in the municipal by-law. The only right address to settle your case is your insurer.

The positive lever exists too. The BAC writes that installing loss prevention devices can reduce your premiums, and that you should call your insurer when you update the home’s protection systems. The AMF adds a useful warning: ask for the amount of the discount before you install the equipment. And one sentence from the BAC sums up the original misunderstanding: “home insurance is not a maintenance contract.” Service lives are in home maintenance costs in Quebec.

Before you buy: what the mandatory form does not ask

Here is the gap I flag to every buyer. The mandatory Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble form, the seller’s declarations on the property (DV 00001, version 06/2022), contains no question about smoke alarms or about carbon monoxide alarms. It asks question D14.1 about damage suffered as a result of a fire, and that is all. Nobody will declare the age of the devices on your behalf.

Three checks take five minutes during a showing. Read the date of manufacture on the back of the casing. Count the devices per storey, basement included. And if there is a combustion appliance or an attached garage, look for the carbon monoxide alarm. In a Montreal plex, ask for the annual register as well.

What the inspector looks at item by item is in the pre-purchase inspection checklist, and what makes an insurer hesitate on one specific address is in a home that is hard to insure.

Frequently asked questions

I have just bought. Do I have to replace the alarms? Look at the date of manufacture on the casing. In Montreal as in Laval, every alarm is replaced 10 years after that date, and immediately if no date is legible. In the Montreal agglomeration, a residential building built before 1985 has to move to non-removable lithium batteries, unless it already has 120 volt electric alarms.

My tenant removed the battery. Who is at fault? Both cities speak of a shared responsibility, and the Tribunal administratif du logement lease puts it in black and white. In Laval, a tenant who fails to maintain their alarm faces $80 for a first offence. The owner, for their part, remains bound to supply and install.

Can the insurer refuse to pay if the alarm was dead? It is not automatic, and nobody can answer in place of your insurer. The rule targets false declaration and aggravation of the risk, not the equipment as such. Read your particular conditions, then call your representative before a loss.

Is a carbon monoxide alarm mandatory in a single family home? In Laval, yes, as soon as there is a combustion appliance or direct access to an indoor parking garage, and the Montreal fire service states the same condition. The Bâtiment chapter of the Code de sécurité, for its part, does not cover the detached single family home: so it is your city that decides.

To go further, read the hidden costs of homeownership and managing rental properties.

Buying a plex and wondering what will be held against you after signing? Write to me: we go through the registers and the equipment to demand from the seller together.

Georges Matar

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

Contact Georges