Builder-website HCRA disclosure audit (May 2026): of 10 fully-rendered homepages, Activa/Fusion/Reid's Heritage display licence numbers; Minto/Brookfield/Madison do not on homepage; none link to the OBD

Claim: Of 25 Ontario builder homepages sampled by Candid Creative in May 2026 (KW-region + GTA/Ontario volume builders), 10 could be fully rendered to plain HTML. Of those 10:

17 other builders — Mattamy, Great Gulf, Empire, Menkes, Tribute, Fernbrook, HIP, Daniels, Lindvest, Dunpar, Granite, Cortel, Countrywide, Fieldgate, Paradise, Aspen Ridge, Remington — could not be fully rendered (JavaScript-only sites). Disclosure status: not verifiable.

Source: Candid Creative internal audit, May 2026, cross-referenced with obd.hcraontario.ca.

Confidence: Single-source.

Caveat: The audit over-represents KW/Guelph builders and under-represents big-volume GTA brands. A follow-up audit using a browser-rendering tool (Playwright/Puppeteer) would close that gap.

Key findings for Candid:

• Displaying the HCRA licence number in a footer is the new floor — three KW/Guelph builders do it; three big GTA brands do not.
• No audited builder links the licence number directly to the OBD profile. That gap is a best-in-class differentiation opportunity.
• Spelling matters: Activa's footer says "HRCA" instead of "HCRA" — a real credibility issue.
• Tridel's project-page disclosure pattern (per-entity licence + linked PDF) is the cleanest pattern observed.

Canonical Candid rule: RULE: Every Candid builder-client site must display HCRA licence number(s) in the footer of every page and link directly to the builder's OBD profile.