Best of the Best : How to Check Contractor License

Last post, I talked about the steps to verify and validate the home improvement license of the contractors you are engaging. Today, I will give you more details on how to validate them in California and Washington state. I have not decided whether I will go through all states, but at the minimum I will try to provide links that you may do the same in other states.

There are two types of online resources that you can use to verify the home improvement contractor licenses: government and for-profits.

California

Department of Consumer Affairs -Contractors State License Board

This is a government owned online resource and you can get lots of information about contractor licensing from the site. There is a tool on the site called Check a Contractor License or Home Improvement Salesperson (HIS) Registration. With these tool, you can search by using the information you have collected from your potential contractors. Either by Name, License Number, Business Name.

License Number	1234556 Extract Date: 12/14/2010
Business Information	A TEICHERT & SON INC dba TEICHERT CONSTRUCTION  3500 AMERICAN RIVER DRIVE SACRAMENTO, CA 95864 Business Phone Number:(916) xxxxxxx
Entity:	Corporation
Issue Date	09/24/1929
Reissue Date	04/03/1989
Expire Date	04/30/2011
License Status	This license is current and active. All information below should be reviewed.
Additional Status:
Classifications:	Class Description A GENERAL ENGINEERING CONTRACTOR B GENERAL BUILDING CONTRACTOR C16 FIRE PROTECTION CONTRACTOR C27 LANDSCAPING C57 WELL DRILLING (WATER)
Certifications:	CERT Description HAZ HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES REMOVAL ASB ASBESTOS - Check DOSH Registration
Bonding:	Contractor’s Bond This license filed Contractor’s Bond number 6250091 in the amount of $12,500 with the bonding company SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA.  Effective Date: 01/01/2007 Contractor’s Bonding History Bond of Qualifying Individual 1. This license filed Bond of Qualifying Individual number 6250090 for RIGGS JUDSON TEICHERT in the amount of $12,500 with the bonding company SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA.  Effective Date: 01/01/2007 BQI’s Bonding History 2. This license filed Bond of Qualifying Individual number 6436055 for HAMILTON CLYDE ALBERT in the amount of $12,500 with the bonding company SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA.  Effective Date: 02/05/2007 BQI’s Bonding History 3. This license filed Bond of Qualifying Individual number 6335646 for NILSEN MARK ALAN in the amount of $12,500 with the bonding company SAFECO INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA.  Effective Date: 01/01/2007 BQI’s Bonding History

Here is an example of you may get from the search, in this query result, you can verify the data with the information you got. If there is any discrepancy, you can immediately get back to your contractor and let him/her know.

The information you want to pay extra attention to is the name of the person under this license, the phone number, the expiry date of the license, and the classification/specialty of the contractor. These are the information you need to clear out.

There may be rare case that the system is not updated with accurate information, so to be fair you should notify the contractor.

In a future post, I will discuss in details about the meaning of bonding and insurance. Next post, I will talk about Washington State.