General

A contractor is a natural person, a company or a corporate entity who/that carries out, or has a third party carry out, construction works for others. A person who makes or submits tenders, either personally or by proxy, in view of carrying out or of having someone else carry out such works, to the former person’s own benefit, is also considered a contractor.

A developer who enters into a contract with a third party with a view of selling this person a building that the developer has built, is having built by someone else, or which he/she commits himself/herself to build or to have someone else build, must also hold a building contractor’s licence.

For the RBQ, construction work is any work related to foundations, erection, renovation, repairing, maintenance, alteration or demolition of a building, of an equipment intended for public use, of a facility which is not attached to a building, or of a civil engineering structure, all work performed at the construction location and on site. This definition includes the preliminary site development works.

The RBQ can inform you regarding the construction standards applying to all buildings except those mentioned in article 3.3. of the Regulation respecting the application of the Building Act . For this last case, you will have to contact your municipal authority. You may also seek information on the subject by contacting a professional engineer, a technologist or an architect.

You can always go to one of the RBQ’s regional offices to deliver in person any document that you wish to submit us. Even if the applications for licence are processed at the Centre de relation clientèle (CRC), in Montreal, the RBQ operates regional offices in different regions of the province of Québec. It is important to ask for a receipt, since the date that appears on it represents the reception date of your document. This receipt is especially significant when response deadlines have to be observed.

Penal provisions are set out for anyone who commits any offence described in the Building Act . The amount of the fine will vary according to the type of offence committed.

When a person is acting as guarantor for a contractor, it means that this guarantor shall be actively involved in all decisions related to the contractor’s area(s) of competence.

The company which the guarantor empowers, and chiefly its officers, must, in the same capacity as the guarantor, meet the criteria of probity. This simply means that if this person becomes the guarantor of a company which, for instance, declares bankruptcy or has its licence suspended or revoked because one of its officers has been declared guilty of a statutory offence or a criminal act, the guarantor could be declared ineligible, together with the officers of the company, to act as such for any other company for a period of three (3) years.

There is no requirement that a guarantor must reside within the province of Quebec. However, be advised that acting as a dummy (front man) is illegal, and that you will be held responsible of any incident even if you were not present at the site.

If one of the companies that you are an officer of declares bankruptcy, this will affect your other companies as well. Thus, if you are an officer within a company having declared bankruptcy, or which licence has been either suspended or revoked because one of its officers has been found guilty of a statutory offence or of a criminal act, you could be declared ineligible to act in this capacity within another company for a period of three (3) years.

Your son shall wait until he reaches majority to be able to become a guarantor on your licence, according to section 58, paragraph 3, of the Building Act .

Since 1999, most new residential buildings are covered by a mandatory guarantee plan. This means that in order for you to sell this type of building, you need to have the future properties that you will build registered with an administrator of the guarantee plan of the new residential buildings. This guarantee plan is intended to ensure that you perform certain legal and contractual obligations. This means that since the buildings are covered, your client will be given specific protections and indemnities.

To learn more about how to proceed with registering yourself to the Plan and get the details concerning the protections you are required to offer, we invite you to refer to the section entitled Guarantee plan for new residential buildings.