A legal basement suite touches three different authorities in Ontario. You will never deal with any of them. Our team and our licensed trades pull every permit, book every inspection, and hand you the paperwork at the end.
An unpermitted basement apartment can void your home insurance, expose you to fines, and scare off buyers when you sell. A legal suite does the opposite. It adds appraised value, it rents at full market rate, and it passes a home inspection.
We build to the Ontario Building Code and your municipality’s requirements from day one. That means:
The difference between a legal suite and an illegal one is not the drywall. It is the permits and inspections behind the drywall. That is the part we manage for you.
One project. Several permits. Three authorities.
Most homeowners are surprised to learn that a basement suite is not one permit. Here is the full picture in plain language, and who pulls each one.
This is the main one. It is required any time you create a second dwelling unit or finish a basement into living space. The city reviews your drawings against the Ontario Building Code for ceiling height, fire separation, exits, room sizes, and life safety. We prepare the application and drawings and submit it for you.
Required when you add a kitchen or a bathroom, which every suite does. This covers your drains, your venting, and your water connections. It also covers a backwater valve, which is a device that stops city sewage from backing up into your new suite and is required in many GTA municipalities.
Required when you add or change heating and ventilation for the suite. This covers ductwork, exhaust fans vented to the outside, and any separate heating for the unit.
Here is the part people get wrong. Electrical work in Ontario does not go through the city. It goes through the Electrical Safety Authority, or ESA. It is a completely separate permit, and by law it has to be filed by a Licensed Electrical Contractor. Our electrician files it, does the work to code, and the ESA issues a Certificate of Inspection. You need that certificate for your suite to be legal.
If your project involves anything that burns gas, such as a furnace, a water heater, a gas range, or a dryer, that work is governed by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, or TSSA. A licensed gas technician handles it. Our trade partner takes care of this one.
There is usually no separate demolition permit for the interior tear-out in a basement. That work is covered under the same building permit, which in Ontario is filed on a form actually called the Application to Construct or Demolish. If your specific project ever needs a standalone demolition permit, that is on us as well.
Before we apply for a single permit, we confirm your lot is allowed to have a second suite. Most GTA lots now are, thanks to recent provincial rules, but there are conditions around things like unit size and parking that vary by city. We check this first so nothing gets built that cannot be approved.
A few municipalities, such as Mississauga and Brampton, require you to formally register the finished suite. Toronto generally does not. If your city requires it, we walk you through it.
You do not chase permits. You do not sit on hold with the building department. You do not learn what a fire-rated assembly is. That is our job. Here is how we manage it from start to finish.
We confirm your property can legally have a suite before you spend a dollar on drawings.
We produce the permit-ready drawings the city needs. These show your floor plan, ceiling heights, fire separation, exits, and every fixture. Incomplete drawings are the number one reason permits get delayed, so we submit a complete set the first time.
We file the building permit application with your municipality on your behalf. Everything goes through the city's online system.
Our Licensed Electrical Contractor files the ESA permit. Our licensed gas technician handles the TSSA side. You do not have to know the difference. We do.
A permitted job gets inspected at set milestones, usually framing, then rough-in for plumbing and electrical and HVAC, then insulation, then final. We book each one and meet the inspector. Nothing gets closed up before it passes.
When every inspection passes, your suite is a legal dwelling unit. We hand you your closed permits and your ESA Certificate of Inspection for your records.
A basement that “looks finished” is worth nothing at resale if there is no permit history behind it. What protects you is documentation. When your project wraps, you get:
Keep this file. It is what you show a home inspector, an insurance company, or a buyer to prove the suite is real. It is also how you know the permits were actually pulled. Any contractor can say “permits included.” We put the numbers in your hands.
You can, but you take on all the risk. If the work does not match the drawings, or an inspection fails, it lands on you as the permit holder. When we pull and manage the permits, that responsibility sits with us and our licensed trades.
It depends on your municipality. Plan review is often around two weeks in larger cities once a complete application is submitted, but it varies, and legalizing an existing suite can take longer. We give you a realistic timeline for your city at the quote stage.
Yes. The city will not issue a permit for “finish basement.” A reviewer needs to see rooms, ceiling heights, exits, fire separation, and fixtures on paper. We handle the drawings as part of the job.
That is the point of inspections, and it is why work is inspected in stages before anything gets covered up. If an inspector flags something, we correct it and get it re-inspected. That is exactly what you are paying a permitted contractor to manage.
Richmond Hill, Markham, Vaughan, Aurora, Newmarket, Toronto, and surrounding GTA. Permit rules and fees vary by municipality, and we know the requirements in the areas we serve.
If you want to finance your renovation, then yes we can add it to your monthly payment. We lay out exactly what is included in your written quote, so there are no separate bills showing up mid-project.
You want a finished basement and a legal suite. You do not want to become an expert in three separate government authorities to get one. That is the entire reason we exist.
Book a free site visit. We will check egress, ceiling height, moisture, and your panel, then lay out exactly which permits your project needs and how we will manage each one. No pressure, no obligation.
