Hire a contractor who has not paid their workers compensation premiums, and the board comes to you for them.

This is not a technicality. It is the stated position of the boards in all three provinces, and the defence against it is a free document you request in about two minutes.

Most small landlords have never heard of it. Here is the vendor bench worth building, and the four checks separating a professional operation from an expensive one.

Check one: workers compensation clearance

The principle is called principal liability. A party who retains a contractor is exposed to the contractor's unpaid premiums for the contract period. A clearance obtained before work starts is what protects you.

• Alberta — WCB-Alberta states it plainly: without a clearance letter, if the contractor has not paid their premiums, you might be liable for them. Obtain one before hiring, and again before releasing final payment.
• British Columbia — WorkSafeBC says hiring a registered subcontractor who is not making required payments exposes you to premiums relating to the work. You need a clearance letter addressed to you, confirming the contractor was active and in good standing for the entire contract period. A second BC trap: a property owner becomes an employer needing coverage if they hire their own worker for ongoing home services at 8 or more hours a week, or for a one-time project totalling 24 or more hours. A regular handyman crosses the line easily.
• Ontario — WSIB clearances are free. Quick-access clearances are available instantly online, or by email in three to five business days. A clearance is valid up to 90 calendar days and is renewable, and you keep the records for three years. Without a valid clearance, the principal is exposed to the contractor's obligations up to the value of the labour portion of the contract. Ontario has a home renovation exemption, where a person doing home renovation work only, hired and paid directly by the homeowner or resident, is exempt. Note the wording carefully — it is framed around the resident or occupant, not around an absentee landlord of a rental unit. Whether it covers you is unclear, and the clearance is free, so pull it.

Check two: the certificate of insurance

Workers compensation covers the contractor's injured workers. It does not cover damage to your building. Damage to your building is what commercial general liability covers.

Ask for a certificate of insurance and read five things: the named insured has to match the contractor's legal business name, not a trade name on a truck; the policy has to be commercial general liability; the effective and expiry dates have to cover the entire job, not only the day you asked; the limits have to be adequate ($2 million is the standard Canadian minimum owners and municipalities request, and $5 million is normal for larger or higher-hazard work); and your ownership entity should be named as additional insured, which extends the contractor's policy to you.

Verify it — call the insurer or broker listed on the certificate. Do not accept a PDF at face value. Certificates are among the easiest documents to alter, and an expired policy looks identical to a current one. Red flags: expired dates, missing limits, and reluctance to have you contact the broker.

Check three: the permit and the licence

Some work legally requires a licensed professional and a permit, and the homeowner exemptions most landlords assume they have often do not apply to a rental.

• Ontario electrical — almost all electrical work has to be reported to the Electrical Safety Authority through a notification of work filed before the work starts. If you hire someone, the law requires it to be a Licensed Electrical Contractor. A building permit is not a substitute, and you might need both.
• British Columbia — electrical and gas permits are issued by Technical Safety BC. Homeowner permits are limited, and owners of a strata, a non-strata duplex, or anyone operating a business from the home cannot obtain them. Gas servicing should only be carried out by a certified gas fitter employed by a licensed gas contractor. Run your specific situation through the eligibility check rather than assuming.
• Alberta — permits run through municipalities under the Safety Codes Act. Calgary's rules are the clearest statement of the general position: homeowner electrical and plumbing permits require you to be the legal owner, to do the work yourself, and the home not to be a rental property. Homeowners cannot obtain gas permits at all unless certified as a gasfitter. Service upgrades, solar, EV chargers and air conditioning electrical all require a licensed contractor.

The cost of skipping it lands later. Unpermitted work surfaces on a permit search at sale, and buyers commonly demand a price reduction or legalization before closing. Insurers have grounds to deny a claim where undisclosed unpermitted work contributed to the loss.

Check four: contractor or employee

If the same person does most of your work, on your schedule, with your tools, the Canada Revenue Agency might call them your employee regardless of what your invoice says.

The test is whether the arrangement is a contract of service, meaning employment, or a contract for services, meaning self-employment. The factors are control, ownership of tools, ability to subcontract or hire assistants, financial risk, responsibility for investment and management, and opportunity for profit. The CRA is explicit: the facts govern, not the parties' stated intention. A clause calling someone a contractor settles nothing.

The exposure: where the relationship is employment in substance, you are the employer, liable for unremitted Canada Pension Plan contributions covering both shares, plus employment insurance premiums, penalties and interest, typically assessed retroactively.

De-risking it: the person works for multiple clients, supplies their own tools and vehicle, invoices with a business number, sets their own hours, and is free to send a substitute. If the status is genuinely unclear, either party requests a ruling from the CRA using form CPT1.

One note on currency: the CRA's guide RC4110 was cancelled in January 2026 and replaced by web guidance on employment status. Use the current page.

Building the bench

• Three trades, minimum — a plumber, an electrician and a general handyman. Add an HVAC contractor if you own anything with a furnace, which is most Canadian portfolios.
• Two deep in each — one person is not a vendor bench. It is a single point of failure who eventually goes on vacation during a January furnace failure.
• Find them before you need them — the worst time to select a contractor is during an emergency, when you take whoever answers and pay whatever they ask.
• Keep a rate card — hourly rate, call-out fee, after-hours rate, typical response time, written down, per trade. It turns every future decision into a lookup instead of three phone calls.
• Keep the compliance file current — clearance and certificate of insurance per contractor, with expiry dates in your calendar. Ontario's clearances run 90 days, so renew rather than reuse.
• Pay quickly — a landlord with a reputation for paying within a week gets answered on a Sunday in February. This is a real operational advantage and it costs nothing.

The five-minute rule

Before any contractor starts work on a property you own: clearance obtained, certificate of insurance verified, permit confirmed as their responsibility or yours, and the scope in writing.

Five minutes, four checks. Set it against premium liability, a denied insurance claim, unpermitted work discovered at closing, or a retroactive CPP assessment.

LuxOasisOS keeps vendor records, documents and expiry dates alongside the maintenance history for each unit, so the compliance file is where the work order is.