Home Inspection in Milton

Ask the seller for the permits and final inspections, then ask the Town of Milton Building Division for the permit history at the address. Yard work has its own rule here: Milton’s Site Alteration By-law 094-2022 applies across the town, including residential lots, with exemptions for minor landscaping and driveway maintenance. So where the house has a pool, a regraded yard or a retaining wall, we check what approval that work needed and whether it is on file. Signs of unpermitted work inside the house go in the report, with what legalizing it would involve.

Yes. A Milton house near a ravine, a watercourse or a floodplain can fall inside Conservation Halton regulation, which limits what a later owner can build there. We check the Conservation Halton mapping for the address as part of a pre-purchase inspection, so an addition or a garden suite you have in mind is weighed against it before you waive conditions.

Yes. We take on home inspection across Milton, including Old Milton and Timberlea, within an hour of our Richmond Hill office. The first consultation is free, by phone or on site.

Three things to start: property address and the date you need the report by; the listing, and any drawings or disclosures you have; and what you are planning to do with the house. Send those and we tell you what the Town of Milton Building Division will ask for before we quote.

The Town of Milton Building Division inspects work done under an issued permit, at the stages that permit sets, up to the final inspection; a sale on its own does not bring its inspectors out. Ours answers to you, whether you are buying or already own the house. In a semi or detached house from Milton’s growth since the early 2000s, our P.Eng goes through the foundation and framing, the heating, plumbing and wiring, and whatever owners have changed since the builder finished, and you get the findings in a written report.

We start with the lot. Milton allows up to three added units on an urban lot served by municipal water and sewer, so we confirm the servicing and count the units already there. Then we ask the Town of Milton Building Division whether this apartment was permitted and the permit closed, and our P.Eng checks how the two homes are separated and the way out of each. Whatever falls short goes in the report, along with the permit work that would make the unit legal.

Yes, from the survey and the zoning. On an urban lot, By-law 016-2014 tells us how close to the lot lines an addition can come and how tall it can be; then we count how many of the three additional units Milton allows are already in use, and whether the single detached unit is still available. We send the answer in writing, timed to your condition date.

They can, once the lot passes 0.5 hectares or if the whole property lies in the Regional Greenlands System. At that point Halton Region’s tree removal regulations apply, on top of the Town of Milton’s advice to have a certified arborist look at a tree before it is removed. If you are buying with a pool, an addition or a backyard unit in mind, the report marks the trees near that spot and says whether the lot meets either regional trigger.

Mostly the structural ones. Ontario’s Building Code Act counts a material repair as construction, so the Town of Milton Building Division has to issue a permit before a failing beam is replaced or part of a foundation wall is rebuilt, and the report keeps those items apart from repairs that need none. When our P.Eng designs the repair, we start its permit application in the Amanda Permit Portal.

Yes, and if the renovation goes ahead we draw the existing house from what we measured that day. Our P.Eng finds the walls that hold up the floors above, checks whether the panel and the furnace can carry more load, and lists any earlier alterations the Town of Milton Building Division has no permit for. We also read the lot under By-law 016-2014, or By-law 144-2003 for a rural property, so the plan starts from the rules it will be reviewed against.

Yes. Much of Milton’s housing, mostly single and semi-detached homes, has gone up since the early 2000s, and on a house still under Tarion’s warranty our report gives you a written list to raise with the builder: workmanship faults, water getting in, major structural defects. We also ask the Town of Milton Building Division whether the permit for the house was closed after its final inspection, since a permit stays open until every required inspection is done.