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How to Acquire a Contractors License

5158 Views 15 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  Kgmz, 
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Hello all. I am in King County, Washington. We are a Supplier and do not have a contractors license. I wish to join forces with a very small company called ABC General. He does have a contractors license.

My company will hire his people and they will do the work under my company name in my trucks. The only problem is that we must use his contractors license, which is under ABC General.

- Do we acquire the company?
- Do we call it a subsidiary?
- Can we add our name to his license?
- Should we get our own license?
- Can we use an ink stamp and just stamp his name and license number on our quotes, invoices, trucks?

What is the easiest way to accomplish this joint venture. The expense of changing my company name, logos, printing supplies, invoices, business cards, vehicle graphics, bank accounts is just to great.
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K
How long have you been doing business in the state of Washington, and selling materials to contractors?

It is easy to get a contractors license in Washington as long as you can get insured and bonded. Why would you want to split the profit with someone else?

Also there is no such company as "ABC General" licensed as a contractor in the State of Washington. I did see a company called "ABC Fences" in Kent.

If your company does wholesale fence materials to other contractors, what are they going to think if you start competing with them.

And last what is the name of your company.
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K
Well he must have bought the contracting company or bought a share of the company, otherwise this isn't legal.

And for those that don't know what a MBA is, Master Business Application, which is just the starting point of the changes.

But it isn't that simple, all these changes need to be done with L & I (Labor & Industries) also. Which will require a change in the insurance and bond. Plus a change with workmans comp, employment security, and the department of revenue.

And he never answered the question as to the point of buying a company rather than starting up with his own license. Doesn't make sense to me to share the profit, and you also know what happens with most partnerships.
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K
One simple fact, you cannot DBA or register a Trade Name for a business that you do not own or have a partial ownership in.

Go to Washington State Department of Licensing, Trade Names.

I have dealt with this states business licensing for over 30 years now. We have two C corporations, and have owned dozens of business through the years. And have done the DBA/Trade name thing several times as some of the businesses under the corporations were not related at all. Such as we have owned several convenience stores with gas and also owned a couple of Honda/Yamaha motorcycle dealerships under one corporation. And of course they all had different names so a DBA/Trade name had to be applied for. Our first corporation was Incorporated in this state in 1975, the second in 1981.
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