A Worker Gets Hurt Renovating Your Home: WSIB and Homeowner Liability in Ontario

Ontario’s home renovation exemption depends on who is actually standing in your house with the tools. A solo trade, a small crew, a general contractor’s subcontractors and a rental job each land in a different place.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. Picture a kitchen renovation: you met one contractor at your kitchen table, agreed on a price, and paid a deposit to that person. On day three, two people you have never met are carrying drywall up your stairs, and on day nine an electrician you did not hire is in your panel.

Most homeowners never think about WSIB until someone on that crew gets hurt. Ontario’s rules on whether you, as the homeowner, have any WSIB paperwork or exposure do not turn on the size of the job or the price. They turn on who is physically doing the work, who hired them, and who lives in the home. So this piece walks through the four arrangements I see most often, one by one.

The test the statute actually applies

Section 12.2 of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act (WSIA) makes independent operators, sole proprietors, partners and executive officers in construction deemed workers who must be covered, with their own business deemed the employer. Section 12.2(8) then carves out those who “perform no construction work other than exempt home renovation work.”

The WSIB’s policy on this exemption (Operational Policy 12-01-06, applying to decisions made on or after December 5, 2024) says an existing private residence includes a house, a condominium unit, an apartment unit and a seasonal or recreational home such as a cottage, plus garages, sheds, fences or swimming pools on the same site that are used only for non-commercial purposes. To count as directly retained, the business must:

• be hired by the occupant or a family member;
• provide estimates, contracts or invoices in its own name to the occupant or family member; and
• receive payment for the job directly from the occupant or family member.

“Family” in the statute means a spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, parent-in-law, sibling, and the matching step relationships. The WSIB may review contracts, proposals and invoices to confirm the exemption, so the paperwork you sign is part of the evidence.

Situation 1: a solo tradesperson you hire and pay directly

This is the arrangement the exemption was built around: one painter, one tiler or one handyman, working alone in the home you live in, quoting and invoicing you in their own name and taking payment from you.

Does the exemption apply? To the work, generally yes, if all three facts in the definition line up. Whether the tradesperson is personally exempt from compulsory coverage is a separate question about their whole business. The WSIB’s FAQ is blunt: if they take on even one contract that is not a home renovation, they no longer meet the criteria, and must register and pay premiums on all their earnings for at least three months. Under s.12.2(9), an exempt person must tell the Board about a material change in circumstances within 10 days.

Clearance and money: s.141.2(10) switches off the clearance-certificate rules, and s.141.1(8) switches off the rule that makes the hiring party liable for a contractor’s unpaid WSIB obligations, for a person who directly retains a contractor for exempt home renovation work.

If they are injured: an exempt individual without optional insurance is, in the WSIB’s words, “not entitled to any benefits.” The statutory bar on lawsuits in s.28(1) protects Schedule 1 employers and their directors, executive officers and workers. A homeowner who simply hired a contractor is not named on that list, so it is possible that an injured tradesperson could look to other routes, including a civil claim. Whether any such claim would succeed is a question for a lawyer, not this article.

Situation 2: a small renovation company whose owner brings employees

Now the person who quoted you is the owner of a small incorporated or sole-proprietor business, and they arrive with one or two employees on the payroll.

Does the exemption apply? To the owner personally, it can: WSIB policy 12-01-06 says no coverage is required for the individual sole proprietor, partner or executive officer who does only exempt home renovation work. But it also says that when such an employer hires workers, the employer must register those workers with the WSIB and report their insurable earnings. The employees are not exempt.

Clearance and money: here the text runs out. The statutory definition describes work “performed by” the operator, proprietor, partner or executive officer. Neither the Act nor the policy pages I read say expressly whether a homeowner’s ss.141.1(8) and 141.2(10) exclusions remain fully intact when an employee does part of the work. I am not going to guess. If you want certainty, ask the company for its WSIB account details and a clearance, which the Board issues “on request” to the contractor or the person who retains it under s.141.2(3), or ask the WSIB directly.

If an employee is injured: an employee of a registered Schedule 1 employer would normally claim through the WSIB, and s.28(1) bars that worker from suing any Schedule 1 employer. Again, a homeowner is not on that list. If the worker is entitled both to benefits and to sue someone, s.30 requires them to elect one route, within three months of the accident under s.30(4), which the Board may extend under s.30(5).

Situation 3: a general contractor who brings in subcontractors

This is the kitchen from the introduction. You hired and paid one general contractor; the electrician, plumber and drywall crew were hired and paid by that contractor, not by you.

Does the exemption apply? Possibly to the general contractor you directly retained. But WSIB policy 12-01-06 states plainly that the exemption does not apply to subcontractors retained by the contractor, because they are not directly retained by the occupant or a family member. Those individuals require WSIB coverage.

Clearance and money: ss.141.1 and 141.2 are written around the person who directly retains a contractor or subcontractor. On that wording, the duty to check the subcontractors’ clearances sits with the general contractor who hired them. How that interacts with your own position as homeowner is not spelled out in the Act or the policy pages I read, so I will not draw a conclusion.

One more provision deserves a mention. Section 142 says that if a Schedule 1 employer is entitled to a lien under the Construction Act at a premises, the owner of the premises “has a duty to see that the employer pays the premiums” for the work done for the owner and, if the owner fails to, is liable to make those payments. The text of s.142 contains no home renovation carve-out. I have not confirmed how the WSIB applies it to owner-occupied homes, so read it as a provision to ask about, not a verdict.

If a subcontractor’s worker is injured: a worker of a covered subcontractor would generally claim through the WSIB, and the s.28 bar and s.30 election described above apply to them.

Situation 4: a property you rent out, or a home no family member will live in

The third element of the definition is occupancy: the home must be occupied, or going to be occupied, by the person who directly retained the contractor or by a family member. A unit you lease to a tenant, or a house you are fixing up to sell, fails that test. So does a home for a friend or a relative who is outside the statutory list of family members. The job is then ordinary construction work for WSIB purposes.

Clearance and money: under s.141.2, before you let the contractor start, you must obtain a clearance certificate or a copy. If it expires or is revoked before the work is finished, you need a new one. You must keep it for at least three years and produce it if the Board asks. WSIB policy 14-02-19 says a clearance is valid for up to 90 calendar days, depending on when it is issued, and is renewable. If you skip it, s.141.1 makes you liable for the contractor’s unpaid WSIB obligations to the extent the contractor does not pay; the policy caps that at the value of the labour portion of the contract. Complying with s.141.2 takes you outside s.141.1, under s.141.1(9).

The mixed case: a house where you live upstairs and rent the basement is common in the GTA. The statute extends “private residence” to incidental structures used exclusively for non-commercial purposes, but it does not address a rented unit inside the home you occupy. I would not assume either answer; ask the WSIB before the work starts.

If a worker is injured: on a non-exempt job the contractor should be registered, which points the injured worker toward the WSIB in the usual way, with the s.28 bar and s.30 election applying.

Exempt home renovation work vs. a regular construction job

Before the first tool comes out

Grouped by the question you are answering, not by date.