California CSLB Sting!
This just in:
Sacramento — Illegal operators who showed up at a sting house in Jackson this week were swept up by the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) and arrested for contracting without a license. Members of the CSLB’s Statewide Investigative Fraud Team (SWIFT) posed as homeowners and invited suspected phony contractors to a duplex to bid on various home improvement projects, including landscaping, painting, concrete work and fencing. The enforcement action was conducted on Wednesday, May 30 in cooperation with the Amador County District Attorney’s Office and investigators from the California Department of Insurance, Fraud Division and the Jackson Police Department.
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By law, all contractors who perform work that totals $500 or more (labor and materials) must be licensed by the CSLB. “Unlicensed operators often have a lot of other legal problems,” said CSLB Registrar Steve Sands. “Homeowners may think they are saving money by hiring someone who is unlicensed. But you never know what kind of individuals you are inviting into your home and what their real motives are. You also don’t know if they even know how to do the job.”
For the rest of the article please visit, [the CSLB website].
That last is important: “Homeowners may think they are saving money by hiring someone who is unlicensed. But you never know what kind of individuals you are inviting into your home and what their real motives are. You also don’t know if they even know how to do the job.”
Yes, the handyman has his place. I was one for years. But a legitimate handyman knows when it’s in the home owner’s best interests to call in a contractor, and s/he will (usually) advise you to do so!
And yes, it is also true that contractors cost more than a handyman. That said, in truth, even the most honest handyman will often “graft on a heart” and help out a customer in need — a customer they know can’t afford a contractor, but who needs work done for their safety and/or protection. And yes, I’ve done that too!
Contractors cost more because they have to! The price of legitimacy means that, unlike a handyman, a contractor is not (and cannot) just charge you for the work you’re hiring him (or her) to perform. Like every other regulated business, the contractor must also charge you for the protection you receive from those regulations that make them a legal contractor. The simple truth is, just like the airlines, just like the health care industry, just like every other heavily regulated industry, a contractor has to to recover the cost of those regulations to stay in business.
The “free” estimates, the (sometimes) thousands of dollars of work that must be performed before even a progress payment can be received (and all the while payroll must be made, bookkeepers must be paid, vendors must be paid, vehicles and equipment must be fueled and repaired, and so on), the “retentions” that can be with-held, the — payment, performance, and even bid — bonds that you might require in security, etc. They all increase the price of doing business; all raise the price of giving you, the home owner, the peace of mind you desire when you hire a building professional. All are “back end expenses” that make bona fide, legal contractors more expensive than their illegal counterparts who, honest and skilled or not, do not have to play by those regulatory rules.
So the next time you find yourself wondering why your plumber just charged you $100/hr to unstop your toilet when a handyman might have only charged you $40, give a thought to the power you have over that plumber if s/he screws up the job. Power that you’re paying for with that extra $60; power that you don’t have if the $40/hr handyman screws up the job.
Then ask yourself whether that peace of mind is worth the extra $60. If you think not, then you need to be complaining to your State Representative and State Senator. It is they who make the rules (and so set the cost of regulation).
Technorati Tags: illegal contracting, contracting with out a license, CSLB
