By Breaker Demolition · Published September 12, 2026 · No prices in the guides; every number comes from a site walk. Anything in [brackets] is confirmed before launch.
What needs a permit and what does not
The line is structure. If the work touches anything that holds the building up or closes it in, Toronto Building wants a permit before the first cut.
- Full house tear-down: demolition permit required, always.
- Garage or other detached structure coming down: demolition permit required.
- Removing a load-bearing wall or a section of floor: building permit with an engineer's drawing.
- Interior strip-out to the studs with no structural change: usually no permit for the demolition itself. The renovation that follows needs its own permit.
- Kitchen or bathroom gut with plumbing and electrical to follow: the demolition is the easy part. The rebuild is what gets permitted.
Treat every wall as load-bearing until proven otherwise
If you are unsure which side of the line a wall sits on, assume it carries load until an engineer says otherwise. Pulling a permit for a wall that turned out to be a partition costs a fee and a few weeks. Taking out a beam line without one costs a stop-work order, an engineer's report after the fact, and a rebuild to whatever the City asks for.
Demolition control: the City asks what replaces the house
Toronto runs a residential demolition control process. Before a house comes down, the City considers what will replace it. A permit to demolish a dwelling is tied to what is going up on the lot, and the application for the new build usually travels with the demolition application. Plan the two together. A tear-down with no replacement plan is the slow path. [Typical demolition control timeline: n weeks, Kam confirms.]
What has to happen before the permit is any use
A permit lets you demolish. It does not make the site ready. Four things run alongside it.
- Utility disconnects. Gas, hydro and water are each disconnected at the service, booked with the utility before demolition day. Breaker books these. [Lead time per utility, Kam confirms.]
- Ontario One Call locates. Before anything digs, including a foundation pull, the buried services are located and marked. Required by law, and the marks expire.
- Designated substances survey. Any building from before 1990 is surveyed by a qualified consultant. Asbestos is regulated under O. Reg. 278/05, and abatement happens before the structure comes down.
- Street occupation permit. If the bin sits on the road instead of the driveway, the City needs a separate street occupation permit for it.
How long it takes and what it costs
These are the two questions everyone asks, and both are bracketed here until Kam confirms them. A demolition permit on a straightforward tear-down is [n] weeks typical, Kam confirms. Demolition control on a house can add [n] weeks, Kam confirms. City permit fees are [fee, Kam confirms]. When Breaker pulls the permit and orders the locates, that work is its own line on the written quote.
The practical advice is the same whatever the exact numbers turn out to be. Start the permit before you book the crew. The crew takes a day to drop a house. The paperwork takes weeks.
What to bring to the first conversation
Bring the address, the year the house was built, and whether anything is going up after. From that we can tell you which permit applies, whether a survey is needed, and which utilities need booking. For a tear-down with a new build behind it, the architect or builder often files the building permit and the demolition application together, and Breaker works from their drawings. Book a site walk and you leave with the permit path written down.