A Midland garage addition built without a permit, discovered at closing

The situation

Nine days. That was what stood between Mirela and the closing date on a modest bungalow in Midland when her home inspector's follow-up report landed in her inbox with a line she had not expected: the attached garage addition sat closer to the side property line than the zoning bylaw allowed, and no record of a building permit or variance approval could be found for it. Nine days to figure out whether that meant the deal could still close, and if so, how.

Mirela, a warehouse worker who had spent three years saving for a down payment on her own, had chosen this house partly because of the garage, useful storage and a workspace she had planned around. The seller, Chantal, had owned the home for six years and told her agent, Sylvain, that the addition had been built by the previous owner before she bought it; whether that was accurate or not, the practical problem was the same either way. A structure existed on the property that did not comply with the zoning setback, and nothing on file with the municipality showed it had ever been approved.

In Ontario, when a structure does not meet a municipality's zoning requirements, one route to legalize it after the fact is a minor variance application to the local committee of adjustment, a body that can grant permission for a structure to remain despite not meeting the bylaw, provided it meets a set of tests the committee applies, including whether the variance is minor in nature and whether it fits with the general intent of the zoning bylaw for the area. It is not a rubber stamp. It is a hearing, with notice to neighbours and a real chance of refusal.

Sylvain floated a plan almost immediately: file the variance application that week, get it heard on an expedited basis, and close on schedule with the approval already in hand. It sounded efficient. Mirela, anxious about losing the house and having already given notice on her rental, was inclined to go along with whatever got the deal closed fastest. Her own real estate agent suggested she at least get a lawyer's opinion before agreeing to a plan built entirely around speed.

That is what brought her to our office five days before the original closing date, with a decision already half made and a seller's side eager for her to make it faster.

What the other side was relying on

Chantal's proposal rested on an assumption that turned out not to hold: that a minor variance application filed quickly, with the seller and buyer aligned on wanting approval, would move through the committee of adjustment on a timeline that matched a real estate closing date. Committees of adjustment set their own hearing schedules and decide applications on a fixed calendar of meeting dates rather than on demand — that much is up to each committee. What is not up to the committee is whether neighbouring property owners get notice before a hearing: provincial rules require it, with a minimum lead time fixed by regulation, and a decision made without proper notice is open to challenge. Nine days, or even the extended few weeks Sylvain floated as a fallback, was simply not enough time to get a hearing properly noticed and scheduled, let alone decided or appealed if it failed.

There was a second, more consequential problem with the plan. The seller's side was treating the variance as a formality because the addition already existed and neighbours had lived beside it for years without complaint. But a committee of adjustment does not evaluate whether a structure has been tolerated; it evaluates whether the variance meets the tests the process applies, and an application filed in visible haste, timed around someone else's closing date, is not obviously stronger just because it is fast. If a neighbour raised any objection at the hearing, over the setback, over drainage, over sightlines from a driveway, the application could be refused, adjourned for more information, or approved with conditions nobody had planned around.

The seller's underlying interest was also not quite what Sylvain presented it as. Chantal wanted the deal to close on schedule and wanted the variance issue handled in a way that cost her the least money and the least delay. A rushed application filed without proper preparation, without confirming survey measurements, without a considered position on what conditions the committee might attach, was not actually in Chantal's interest either. If it failed, she would be back to square one with a buyer who had lost trust in the process and a documented refusal on file that any future buyer's lawyer would find.

What Mirela needed was not speed for its own sake. She needed a structure for the deal that did not force her to gamble her closing, and her deposit, on a hearing outcome nobody could actually predict on a nine-day clock.

What we did

1. Ordered a current survey and confirmed the actual encroachment distance. Rather than relying on the inspector's estimate, we had a surveyor measure the addition's exact distance from the property line, because the size of the variance being requested, a few inches versus a few feet, materially affects both the committee's likely reception and how the whole negotiation with the seller should be framed from the outset.
2. Advised against filing on a rushed timeline and explained why in plain terms. We told Mirela directly that no minor variance application could realistically be heard and decided within nine days given the committee's own meeting calendar and the minimum notice period the province required before any hearing could be held, and that agreeing to close on a promise of fast approval would leave her exposed with no recourse if the hearing did not go the seller's way.
3. Proposed extending the closing date rather than compressing the variance process. We negotiated a revised closing date built around a realistic committee hearing schedule instead of the original date, giving the application the time it needed to be prepared properly, publicly noticed, and heard on its actual merits rather than rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline. This removed the pressure that had been driving every earlier decision on the file and let both sides plan around a date the process could actually meet.
4. Required the seller to fund and carry the variance application. Since the unpermitted structure was the seller's problem to have disclosed and resolved before listing the property, we insisted the amendment to the agreement place the cost and administrative responsibility for the application squarely on Chantal's side, not shared with or quietly shifted onto Mirela as the buyer. This kept Mirela from paying, in money or in time, for a problem that existed on the property before she ever made an offer.
5. Negotiated a holdback in trust tied to the outcome. To protect Mirela if the variance was refused or approved with costly conditions attached, we structured a meaningful portion of the purchase price to be held back in trust at closing until the committee's decision was known, released to the seller only once the addition's legal status was fully resolved. This let the sale proceed on the revised date without asking Mirela to accept the zoning risk personally in the meantime.
6. Prepared a fallback position for a refusal scenario before the hearing happened. We set out in the amendment exactly what would happen if the committee refused the variance outright, including Mirela's right to require the addition be brought into compliance at the seller's expense or to adjust the purchase price, so the deal was not left undefined if the outcome went the wrong way.
7. Reviewed the neighbouring properties and anticipated likely objections before the hearing. We walked the site to assess sightlines, drainage, and any visible impact on the adjacent property, so we could anticipate what a neighbour might raise at the hearing and prepare Chantal's application to address it proactively rather than reactively. That groundwork is why the eventual eavestrough condition came as no surprise and could be addressed quickly once the committee raised it.
8. Attended the committee hearing to support the file once it was scheduled. When the hearing date arrived, we made sure the application was presented with the survey evidence and a clear explanation of the addition's history, rather than leaving Sylvain to field questions from the committee or any neighbours in attendance without proper legal support. Having someone in the room who understood both the legal test and Mirela's closing timeline meant the one condition raised could be accepted on the spot rather than adjourned for further consideration.

The outcome

The committee of adjustment approved the variance about five weeks after the application was filed, with one condition: the addition's eavestrough had to be redirected to prevent runoff onto the neighbouring property, a minor and inexpensive fix Chantal completed before the revised closing date. No neighbour objected at the hearing, but the process still took the full five weeks the province's notice requirements and the committee's own meeting calendar demanded, nothing close to the nine days Sylvain had first proposed as a workable timeline.

The deal closed on the revised date, about six weeks after the original one, with the negotiated holdback released to Chantal once she provided proof the drainage condition had been completed. Mirela's costs beyond the delay itself were limited to a modest amount of extra rent on a short-term extension of her existing lease, which she negotiated with her landlord once the new closing date was confirmed, plus a small amount of additional legal fees to prepare and manage the amendment and holdback structure.

This is a partial win rather than a clean one. Mirela got the house, the addition she wanted was legalized, and she never had to gamble her deposit on an unpredictable hearing outcome she could not control. But she also lost six weeks she had not planned for, carried real uncertainty through a hearing whose outcome nobody could guarantee in advance, and only avoided a worse outcome because she was willing to be talked out of the fast, cheap plan the seller's side preferred at the start. Had she pushed to close on the original nine-day timeline, as she was initially inclined to do, she would most likely have closed on a property with an unresolved zoning violation and no leverage left afterward to make the seller fix it.

Chantal, for her part, ended up paying more in application costs and delay than the quick fix she had first proposed, but avoided a much larger risk: a buyer who discovered the same problem after closing, with no seller obligation left to enforce and no committee decision on record at all.

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