Licensed contractor or handyman: how to tell, and when it matters

Most homeowners find out what a contractor license means at the worst possible time, which is after something has gone wrong. Checking takes about two minutes, and it is worth doing for anyone you are considering, including us.

How to check, in two minutes

The California Contractors State License Board keeps a public license lookup. Search by license number or by business name. What you want to see:

• Status is active. Not expired, not suspended.
• The classification matches your job. A Class B general building license covers projects involving two or more unrelated trades, which is what a remodel is. Specialty classifications cover a single trade.
• The bond is in place.
• Workers compensation is current, if they have employees.
• The license number matches the business name you are actually hiring.

That last one catches a real problem. A license number printed on a flyer proves nothing unless it belongs to the entity that will write your contract.

What unlicensed work exposes you to

In California, work above a modest dollar threshold requires a license. Hiring someone without one means the usual protections are simply not there:

• No bond to claim against if the work is abandoned or defective.
• Insurance questions. If someone is injured on your property and the person you hired carries no workers compensation, that exposure can land on you.
• Permit problems. Unpermitted work surfaces when you sell, refinance or file an insurance claim, and correcting it after the fact costs far more than doing it right.

When a handyman is the right call

We are not going to pretend every job needs a general contractor. Small repairs, a fixture swap, patching, a door that sticks, mounting and assembling things: a good handyman is the right tool and will cost you less.

The line is roughly this. If the work touches structure, moves plumbing or electrical, changes the footprint of the house, or needs a permit, it belongs with a licensed contractor. If it does none of those, it probably does not.

One warning sign worth repeating

If a contractor asks you to pull the permit yourself as an owner-builder for work they are performing, stop. There are narrow legitimate uses for an owner-builder permit and this is not one of them. It moves liability from them to you, and that is usually the point.