Does a seller have to disclose known asbestos in an older Ontario home?

Asbestos was widely used in insulation, flooring, and other building materials in Ontario homes built before the 1990s, and its mere presence, undisturbed and properly contained, is not automatically treated as a defect requiring disclosure. Ontario's general rule distinguishes patent defects, which a reasonable inspection would reveal, from latent defects, which are hidden and dangerous; a seller who actually knows about asbestos in a form or location that makes the home unsafe generally must disclose that specific knowledge.

The practical difficulty is that asbestos is frequently invisible without specialized testing, so many sellers can honestly say they don't know it's there even in an older home where its presence is common. This is why buyers of pre-1990s homes should assume asbestos-containing materials may be present in insulation, textured ceilings, floor tiles, or pipe wrapping, and arrange for a qualified inspection or testing before renovation work disturbs any suspect material. If a seller has actually had testing done or knows of a specific asbestos issue and stays silent or answers a direct question falsely, that is a different and more serious problem than simple ignorance.