Ontario TV renovation celeb Mike Holmes under fire for backing shoddy developments

The integrity of famed contractor and TV personality Mike Holmes is being called into question over his connection to a boutique residential community that was constructed so poorly that multiple homes are now being demolished.

The 60-year-old Holmes, who hails from Ontario, had given his celebrity endorsement to the new TerraceWood neighbourhood in the Georgian Bay municipality of Meaford, which accordingly plastered his face on many of its advertisements.

However, residents quickly found that the “Mike Holmes-approved homes” were shoddily built, with all sorts of faults ranging from mould to serious structural issues from the get-go. (The former problem is especially farcical given that Holmes specifically said the builder behind the project used “mould- and moisture-resistant walls”).

Legal action was eventually filed against the developer, Third Line Homes, citing the “nightmare” of an experience purchasers had to face due to “errors and neglect” by the company and others involved.

And now, this week, Holmes and Third Line are making headlines once again as three TerraceWood houses built less than a decade ago undergo sudden demolition.

Like all reality tv shows, he’s bs

— Kevin Reid (@habfandrummer) January 29, 2024

“Given the nature of the defects discovered, demolition was a more reasonable option than repair,” third-party consumer protection agency Tarion, which formally condemned the homes, told CBC News on Monday.

Holmes’s involvement in the venture is especially ironic given that his long-running eponymous HGTV show Holmes on Homes had the explicit mission of “exposing poor, substandard workmanship in the building industry.”

In advertisements for TerraceWood, the star claimed to have purchased his own home in the development, and said that the Third Line dwellings were “built with innovation, integrity, and a commitment to make it right.”

#MikeHolmes

You’re pathetic, selling unsafe homes and then hiding behind legal talk…..GO FIX THOSE HOME …OH ITS TOO LATE THEY ARE BEEN TORN DOWN.

— Carlo Lamberti (@CarloLamberti11) January 29, 2024

Tarion, which is charged with administering and enforcing the province’s New Homes Warranties Plan Act, has stated in litigation against TerraceWood stakeholders that a total of 14 of the houses are defective, meaning that more may very well end up needing to be levelled.

Per the CBC’s investigation, Holmes’s role in the project also went beyond simply promotion — he actually lent the builder money to buy the properties in the first place through private mortgages.