Yes, you can sell a house with unpermitted renovations in Ontario. No law blocks the sale, but the seller has to be careful about disclosure, and missing permits can shrink the buyer pool, complicate financing, and become a negotiating point on price.
Under Ontario's Building Code Act, most structural, plumbing, and mechanical work needs a building permit from the municipality, and electrical work needs an inspection through the Electrical Safety Authority. A basement finished without a permit, a removed load-bearing wall, a rear addition, or a second kitchen are the examples that surface most often in Toronto sales. Paint, flooring, and new cabinets need no permit at all.
Buyers usually find out through a permit search, a home inspection, or a comparison between the current layout and the drawings on file with the City of Toronto. A buyer's lawyer will often add a work order search, which shows whether the city has already ordered anything corrected.
The absence of a permit is not, on its own, something a seller must volunteer. The law focuses on defects. If the unpermitted work hides a problem the seller knows about and a buyer could not find on a normal inspection, that is a latent defect and it must be disclosed. The seller disclosure rules in Ontario apply whether or not a permit exists. If a buyer asks directly about permits, the seller cannot lie, and a misstatement can become the basis of a claim after closing.
Many Toronto sellers treat the missing permit as a material fact and put it in front of buyers early, sometimes by selling the house as-is with the condition described plainly in the listing.
The other route is a retroactive permit. The City of Toronto accepts applications for work already done, but charges a work-without-permit administrative fee equal to 50 percent of the normal permit fee, and an inspector may require walls or ceilings opened so framing, wiring, and plumbing can be checked against the Ontario Building Code. Work that cannot be brought into compliance may have to be removed. Weeks or months is typical, so a spring listing means starting in winter.
Lenders and insurers care too. Some lenders will not finance a property with an open work order, and a home insurer can decline a claim tied to unpermitted electrical or structural work. That is why unpermitted renovations tend to cost a seller more on price than the permit would have cost in the first place.
Related reading: What Makes a Basement Apartment Legal in Toronto?, What Is a Pre-Listing Home Inspection in Ontario?, and Seller Disclosure Obligations in Ontario Real Estate.