Did You Know CA Laws On License + Unlicensed Contractors

bwalley

Did you have a contractors license while working in Florida?

I am not a fan of government intrusion in peoples lives, but one area that they do need to regulate things is in the construction industry, the United States has sets of laws and building codes that are in place to protect the general welfare and safety of the public, one way Florida enforces this in requiring contractors to be licensed.

The states license people who drive automobiles and if you drive for a living you need a CDL, is that a way for the state to generate revenue or promote public safety?

People who own their own homes can do the work themselves, they don't have to hire contractors, but they must follow building codes, yet many times the building department lets owner builders do substandard work that they would not allow a licensed contractor to get away with.

Framer53

There is a difference between contractors license and drivers license. the big one is the police that enforce the rules.

Why make it difficult for anyone to go into business, that is gov interferring in the marketplace, and in my opinion that is a detriment.

If homeowners can follow laws without anything more than an inspection, why can't a contractor?

The laws are there to regulate business, but the cont. licensing laws do a very poor job, hence the complaints of people with licenses complaining about people that aren't properly licensed. The thread is an example of the law going too far. Contractors are trying to do business and can't agree with what their license covers.

I know you like licenses, mainly because you as others believe, falsely in my opinion, that you are better with them. I disagree, fortunatley I live in a state that doesn't put much stock in them.

bwalley

You sound like everyone else that can't or won't get a license.

A homeowner doing work on their own house is one thing, a contractor being a professional should be have the skills not only to do the job but to run the company properly, part of Florida Contractor licensing test covers business and accounting, the other part is the technical portion.

cpnd

the problem is homeowners are not held more accountable. I know of many who hire unlicensed contractors. Their only risk is if someone gets hurt. It is a misdemeanor to do a job for more than 500 L&M without a license. If you know someone is not licensed I think you are contributing to them breaking law and should be a misdemeanor for homeowner also. That scare would straighten things out.

License Guru

I agree to some extent, but we live in a buyer beware society. It is the consumers responsibility to make sure they are hiring a licensed contractor when it's required. But I'm not sure how the government could impose fines or take legal action against the consumer.

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Phil Cocciante
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bwalley

In Florida people who hire unlicensed contractors can be charged with a crime, I have never heard of it happening though.

License Guru

I highly doubt that will ever happen in CA!

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Phil Cocciante
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Zinsco

I found no such FAQ on the CSLB site, can you post a link?

Ponce

As we're going to trial over this case this coming Monday, 3/1/10, I thought I would answer your post.

Per our expert witness, a retired board member of the CSLB who wrote all the descriptions of every "C" classification you see online, YES we were properly licensed to build this deck! There is no gray area. We hold three licenses to completely build any non-watertype deck. The CSLB witness stated in deposition that we could have built this deck ourselves, and went above and beyond the call of duty by subcontracting it to a B-General.

This case will set precident for other cases I'm getting notices of for the same thing across the state of California. Since my posting, I've been contacted several times by other good contractors being sued by unethical lawyers, and hopefully our winning this case will help them. This does not mean that the homeowner cannot appeal to the appelate courts, but we shall see what happens this next week and I will let you all know.

Ponce

No we incorporated per our financial advisor and tax guy as it's more beneficial to our business which has been in business since 1987 in South OC. If you truly live "down the street" from us, then you would know that when all of these homes were being built from 1989 thru 1995, we designed and installed over 45 landscaping jobs just "down the street".

Ponce

You are totally 100% correct and there is no issue as the previous post was implying. A C-27 can build a non-watertight deck and contract to build it. Hence, this lawsuit that's going on almost 3 years, is a complete joke! And they will lose in court.

Look, 703.1 B&P was written to stop unlicensed contractors from ripping the homeowners off out there. I do not believe it's intention was for unscrupulous homeowners and their attornies to sue good contractors to get their entire amount of the job back because they believe a small portion, 10%, of the project MIGHT have been contracted without the proper license. IMHO this is why this legislation needs to be tweaked to protect the good contractors out there.

License Guru

Have you notified and/or suggested this to the CSLB? Or perhaps your senator/assembly memeber? Only legislation can change the B&P Codes.

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Phil Cocciante
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Ponce

Yes LG many, many, many times via phone calls, emails, hand-written letters for the last 3 years. But, I never get a return call, email, nothing, nada! The CSLB is very aware of the problem and sympathizes, but for now they can only help on a case by case basis. This is why our star witness, a retired CSLB BOD member, is testifying on our behalf. I've even called and written Arnold. Never got a response. It's actually pretty sad, frustrating, and dissapointing.

Our government is so disfunctional anymore. It simply fathoms the mind. We go to court this morning and wait and wait and wait and find out mid-morning that the judge never showed! OMGosh! So we wait more and the court assigns a new judge. I've come back to our office to handle company biz, and my hubbie is still there in court while they handle picking the jury, which could take the afternoon. As soon as get updates to how the trial is going, I'll let you all know.

License Guru

Soooo True!!!!!

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Phil Cocciante
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BKFranks

I've only lived here since 1999 and I guess I just don't pay attention to who landscapes what around here.

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hardscrabble

I think whats being overlooked here is the greedy client. The client is trying to manipulate the law through an unethical lawyer to ripoff the contractor. It happens a lot in cali and its usually the affluent clients. I see no wrongdoing on the contractors part. This is total injustice and unfortunately a license is no protection from a frivolous lawsuit. You could have paved their place in gold and they would still be suing

Ponce

You are so, so right unfortunately. Hopefully, the jury and judge see through all of this and do the right thing. However, as I've been told over and over again by our attorney, "many times the right thing does NOT happen in a court of law because of the way the law is written." I have to state to all of you that we're not rich nor are we greedy, and we've worked very hard the last 25 years to build this business from nothing. We've hung on during this financial crisis when many of our competitors (landscape and pool contractors) went under in the last two years. We're still open and doing biz. Not as much as two years before. But enough to pay our mortgage and help with our two boys in college. We don't go out to eat, and definitely haven't had a vacation in over 4-5 years.

We're a typical middle-income family and small business trying to do biz in the State of California. Unfortunately, the business we're in is probably the most difficult here and as someone already stated, the most regulated. Our reputation is excellent with 99.9% of our past clients. Many who have offered to testify. And some have become good friends in the area.

But I'm scared. Because honestly if they win, we'll lose quite a bit. Probably quite a lot of our retirement and we'd have to pay for their court costs along with ours. That could total close to $400,000! So please say a prayer for our family that the judge and jury see the truth.

And to think....THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE JOB. It's beautiful.

Ponce

Update for all of you on day 2 of trial. Going well. Slow. Learning quite a bit about our judicial system and the "law". Good and bad.

Got a very good judge who stated this morning to plaintiff's attorney that he does not understand why he's using MW Erectors' case stating it's the same as this one. Judge stated that MW Erectors (What B&P 703.1 A&B is based on) is completely different than this case as MW Erectors had a lapse in license and was not licensed at all for 3 weeks during contract. Judge told plaintiff's attorney that we hold 3 licenses in good standing with no lapeses, and judge stated he's disturbed that homeowner and their attorney are suing for entire amount of job when the only issue is whether or not classification to build a deck was valid. Well......that's good news.

Jury is chosen, my hubby was on the stand for 4 hours this afternoon by plaintiff's attorney asking some very hostile questions which is par for the course I'm told. Tomorrow judge will also rule whether or not plaintiff can call up as one of their witnesses the lawyer to won the MW Erectors' case to testify for plaintiffs to explain the supposed "law" to all of us especially the judge. Well, I can tell you the judge I don't think was too happy about that and may disallow this witness. Unless this particular lawyer was part of the legislature who wrote and passed the law, I don't know what he could possibly bring to the table as a supposed "expert"?

I'm not a lawyer, but why would you have as one of your star witnesses a lawyer to tell the judge and jury what the interpreation of the law is? That's like telling the judge "You don't know your job."

I'm very proud of my husband who has been professional, calm, and in court, unmoved by the opposing counsels tactics. Of course when he gets home, it's a different story. It's very hard and very stressful. I'm not sure I would be as calm in court. Day 3 tomorrow. Our attorney feels good about the case so far and we have not even had our turn yet.

I told our attorney this evening and he agreed and thinks that the judge is being cautious because of this, that this is a precedent case in CA for all contractors. And if we lose, this will open up a whole new can of worms for ALL contractors in the state. Where every single contract in the future will be nitpicked to death and there will be a surge of lawsuits by money-hungry attornies and their spoiled/wealthy clients.

I'm sure those of you who hold a B-General will say, "Well I'm covered for all." Well, actually you're not especially for pools, so the next step would be to get a classification specialty in every single license ever developed? Yeah that's going to work. NOT

Appreciate all of your prayers! Keep 'em coming!

SoCalPoolBldr

Hey guys - Keeping my fingers crossed for you. It's hard enough in this economy to get work and keep our industry afloat without all the lawsuits. I hope you get all your attorney fees - please keep us posted and good luck!

Ponce

Thanks! As of today, Monday 3/22/10, closing arguments are going on this morning, and the jury will convene with a decision. I feel very positive about this as we had a retired CSLB head guy testify for us that "Yes, with a C-27 Ponce can build decks." Then the city's building dept. mgr. testified that he issues permits for decks to many C-27 classification licensed contractors in the state. So, I'm hoping the jury takes all of this into consideration and does NOT give the plaintiff this job for FREE! Because seriously that's what it all comes down to.

I'll let you all know what the verdict is as soon as I know. And thank you for the well-wishes and prayers!