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fast is now starting all attendees are in listen only mode hello everyone i want to thank you for attending today's third thursday uh training uh we are really fortunate today we have david finneran of the maryland home improvement commission with us um i want to thank everyone who's on the line uh and i i also want to mention that there is a preliminarily i want to mention that there is a handout that's in the slides that are in the chat box that are that are in the box under handouts you can download the slides uh additionally i want to encourage you to use the chat function on the webinar uh so that you can type out any questions type them out as we go along i will let david know we've got a question and we'll take them as we go um and uh i also want to say uh certainly follow us on social media and i'm going to talk in the uh at the end of the the webinar i'm going to talk about some of our upcoming trainings and some other things that are fun but if you follow us on any of those social medias you'll get obviously notifications about upcoming fun trainings so uh with that i'm going to introduce uh dave finneran who is the executive director of the maryland home improvement commission he has a staff of 20 and that includes nine investigators who serve the entire state of maryland he spent 37 years as a licensed home improvement contractor before joining uh before joining the maryland home improvement commission which he who he's been with for four and a half years he has experience in residential construction also he was a certified appraiser and a real estate sales person as well uh and the maryland home improvement commission gets approximately 2 000 complaints a year that david is in charge of overseeing all of that so with that i'm going to let david take it from here and tell you all about the maryland home improvement commission and some of the fun things that might be useful to know thank you amy and i want to thank the maryland volunteer lawyer service and the viewers for tuning in so the home improvement commission uh we're certainly here to help we're here to serve the uh citizens of maryland we license contractors we take complaints so we really have two two sides to our uh our commission uh we have approximately 33 000 licensed contractors and about 3 000 licensed sales people and they uh they service the but we service the whole state of maryland um a home improvement is clearly defined as a restoration repair replacement of a of items that you work on in your residence in your residential home it doesn't include home building it doesn't include commercial it does not include agricultural it does not include uh marine contracting as a new license uh issued by the dnr so that's license work that's done near the near the water rip wraps pure stocks and and uh those sorts of items do not fall under home improvement um but we do licensed contractors that would commonly come to someone's home the roofers the contractors any kind of remodeling that kind of thing now that we have homeowners now they're gonna we're encouraging homeowners to come in and uh call us before they start a project so that they can find out if the contractor's truly licensed certainly unlicensed contractors are a big problem in maryland so we're encouraging we do a lot of outreach we anyone in our staff can take a phone call from a homeowner look up a complaint history of a contractor tell tell them if they're properly licensed if they have insurance and what their complaint history is we also encourage homeowners to get get estimates uh do uh do their due diligence to make sure that they're hiring a contractor that's uh suitable for the job that they they want to have done they have a project that is a you know a tile project or a flooring project they they want to make sure a contractor is skilled in those levels our license is broad so it actually allows a contractor to do anything from hang a shelf to build a 600 000 addition or more so you know we encourage homeowners to do their homework uh check references and that that sort of thing um so our our commission we we licensed contractors but we also take complaints from homeowners these complaints will be on workmen like unsatisfactory incomplete or abandoned home improvement work so the work is not finished incomplete if the if it's not up to the standards of the industry we encourage a homeowner to file a complaint with us uh we'll take complaints in and in the and if the complaint is valid and we find it has merit there's a guarantee fund that will pay them back up to twenty thousand dollars to get the project done either twenty thousand dollars or the amount limited to the amount that they've paid in so far to the to the contractor to get the job completed in a workmanlike manner so uh do you want to give me the next slide uh this next slide is showing some useful links we have uh links to licensing uh we the two categories the license contractor or the licensed salesperson you can check on their license tell them it'll also tell you how long they've been in business there's a link there the second link is going to show you how to obtain a license if a contractor wants to become a licensed home improvement contractor in the state they could click that link and we'll certainly help them through that as well you could also call our office and and if you see in the third bullet point here there's also a lesson workshop that a contractor or prospective candidates or applicants would come to that workshop and we'll walk them through out of the process needed to obtain a license we have about 12 different requirements to obtain a license um including conduct questions and and things of that nature so it's a little bit involved to become a contractor and i know the local community colleges also will give some course prep in the license exam as well uh tips for finding a contractor uh we're gonna go right down the bullet points here we're gonna want you to hire a licensed contractor the benefit to hiring a licensed contractor is that if a homeowner uses a licensed contractor they have access to that guaranteed fund that i spoke of so they have access to possibly having their money receiving a monetary award if they find that their licensed contractor did unsatisfactory incomplete or abandoned home improvement work so if you hire an unlicensed contractor you have none of those benefits we always ask the homeowners to try to get three bids be careful those door-to-door sales people the ones that come to your house and say they have extra material and they want to sell it to you cheap often they're unlicensed request references from the prospective contractor check them out you'll often get references from families and friends family and friends get a copy of the uh contractors liability certificate we actually have a copy of that on file so if someone called our office they would be able to have the liability insurance certificate sent to them before they start the job you know we always want to encourage a written contractor be surprised how many contracts or complaints we get where it was just a handshake and cash was paid to an unlicensed contractor maryland law requires no more than a third of the contract price can be paid as a down payment they can't receive more than a third at this point and there is a uh a cancellation period right now the cancellation period for home improvement is five days five days after you've signed the contract you have a right to cancel or seven days if you're 65 years or older so we want to make them aware of a cancellation period and if a building permit is needed it is the contractor's responsibility to see the building permit is on the job it's not necessarily the contractor's uh requirement that the contractor pulls the permit you know an architect or the homeowner has a right to pull the permit as well but if there is a permit needed the contractor has to make sure that it is it is on the job and if the contractor is working on a house that may have lead paint the contractor should must have a lead paint certification from the maryland department of environment and you can check with the maryland department of environment to see if your contractor is accredited to do lead paint removal david i want to share something that came up when we were when we were preparing for this which was that um if you if you get a written estimate or a contract from a contractor and it doesn't have their mhic number on it that is a that is a bad sign and i'll i'll i'll mention that this was a contract for roofing work that i had gotten uh and we were talking about it and i was like oh i this is indeed a problem yeah yeah our law requires that any advertising the mhrc number that we issue should be on any contract any advertising uh and any truck that pulls on the property that has the contractor in it you know the contractor is using should be the truck should be labeled but it should also have the mhic number on it as well and uh that way it gives the homeowner the opportunity to call us and confirm that the number is the history of that contractor certainly we're the mhic the home improvement commission is a big part of uh some disasters that may occur in maryland uh recent floods in catonsville ellicott city and baltimore city uh we we took a lead role and and brought in a table to homeowners you know they're at a low point they've just experienced a disaster they've had problems with their house now they want to get it cleaned up and they want to have a contractor come in and start doing repairs well the demolition and cleanup is unregulated and it's not considered a home improvement but when you start putting things back together uh you will be following the contractor will need to be a licensed home improvement contractor so these recent floods we've set up shop we open up a laptop and we'll take a question from homeowners about contractors that they are considering and give them as much information as we can we can't recommend contractors but we do give you as much information as we we do have on file about their complaint license history uh plumbers hvac contractors locksmiths master electricians all have their own licensing with different boards in the division the department of labor division of occupational and professional licensing so you can also check with those boards to determine the complaint history and the licensing status of those particular contractors when they are hired under a home improvement contractor for home improvement contractor in your contract you're having a kitchen done a garage build something and you need to hire electrician plumber hvc contractor that'll be part of the contract the home improvement contractor is responsible for hiring a plumber or hvac contractor or a electrician that is licensed and that person also will have to get uh permits that are needed for the job um the if a homeowner hires an electrician or plumber or hvac contractor on their own and they certainly have the right to they should check with those boards to see if they're properly licensed when disasters occur there's also insurance companies that get involved so when a home improvement contractor does not have the right to negotiate with your insurance company there's a separate licensing agency from the maryland department maryland insurance administration called public adjusters so maryland public adjusters are licensed by the maryland insurance administration and again they should be contacted to make sure you're you're working with a licensed individual all right next slide all right so unlicensed contractors here's the big problem we have a large unlicensed contractor population in maryland and we're doing our best to address that we need the participation from everyone in the state to address this problem unless contractors prey on elderly they take deposits do no work there's there's some that you know follow through but it's it's certainly gonna be a situation that puts the homeowner in jeopardy in jeopardy because unlicensed contractor there is that guarantee fund that i explained earlier there is no access to the guarantee fund for a monetary award if you use an unlicensed contractor if he does he or she does abandons the work or does unsatisfactory work uh civil courts are really going to be uh one of the only options to try to recover funds from an unlicensed contractor um just going down through some of the bullet points uh certainly they advertise uh we see them on facebook on some of the new social media angie's list things of that nature there the unlicensed contractor will pop up and uh and anyone can file a complaint against unlicensed contractor we take anonymous complaints against unlicensed contractors we try to build up a database of unlicensed contractors and and get a history of unlicensed contractors there's quite a few repeat offenders out there so that's always a problem um the uh so if you if you file a complaint against unlicensed contractor we have two paths if there is a i think the next file might the next screen might explain some of this better uh if you follow complain against the unlicensed contractor uh no i was incorrect so if you file a complaint on licensed contractor there's a one-year statute of limitations from the date the contractor was last on your job so we have a short time frame we need a complaint to come in uh if you've had personal harm or the homeowner has had harm done to them by the contractor our approaches is to take them to criminal court if we can assemble enough evidence to take it to the court commissioner and have the state's attorney take that before a judge in criminal court uh what i mean is that we usually need a willing witness we need a homeowner that's been harmed that's willing to come to court to testify against the contractor identify the contractor and present us with some kind of was their work done was their contract invoice photos anything that would build a big enough case that we can take to criminal court uh they are facing jail time they are facing stiff fines we have sent many contractors to jail repeat offenders there's enhanced penalties so we would like to see participation from homeowners uh the other issue we have with licensed contractors is just simply their advertising out there on and on and advertising for home improvement work and you'll see that quite often on facebook and and just on their trucks uh things of that nature so the the money mailers all kinds of flyers door-to-door door door hangers door-to-door salesman this we would like the public we would like other licensed contractors to participate with us to file those complaints against those contractors if if we have a long history with these contractors we'll often take them to court for that but the more likely path would be for us to issue a warning uh if it's someone we haven't heard of before we don't find any harm to the public yet that we're that we can put our finger on we'll issue a warning right away and issue them the documents that would explain and the instructions to get them licensed to become a licensed contractor so it's important to get all all these folks on board all right on a complaint so we receive about 2 000 complaints as amy said from homeowners every year against mostly i guess licensed contractors and we will take those complaints and when we get a complaint in we issue a order of the commission we mail out an order to the licensed contractor and we order them to respond within 30 days and we need the response to determine first off if we have the right contractor uh the homeowners sometimes get confused uh things of that nature but the the complaint is the homeowner side of the story the response is the contractor side of the story we get those two together and then it will be issued once we get that response and we assign it to an investigator my staff investigator will take it and try to work out mediation now mediation can be from certainly mediation can happen anywhere along the line if we get a complaint that comes in right right away and the homeowner specifically says i want to attend mediation before it even gets assigned to an investigator uh it can uh the contract can be contacted and it's voluntary o we see if both parties wish to attend mediation uh that even farther down the line when the investigator has it the investigator can promote mediation and we go through different services the community mediation of maryland as you see on the screen is is certainly our biggest venue to send those mediation complaints but certainly the better business bureau or the the attorney general's office will take those as well so we try to get that mediation done that's certainly our best if everybody's talking and we get a uh a resolved complaint that's our best resolution um contracts can also have a binding arbitration clause in there they're uh it's certainly common enough that we get uh when we see a bonding arbitration all right we see an arbitration clause at all on a contract a home improvement contract we send it up to the assistant attorney general for review and if they determine the arbitration is binding we're forced now at this point to take that contract uh let the homeowner know that arbitration will need to be enacted before the uh complaint can go any further it can't go to a claim we can't pay out a monetary award until the arbitration award is complete and uh so we take the homeowner they try to try to go forward with the arbitration and um if the homeowner is successful in arbitration we can take that award and we can actually pay off a guaranteed fund award based on what the arbitration award is on the issue of the arbitration award david i don't mean to put you on the spot but do you have any any idea of of approximately how many contracts a year maybe you have to send up to for better binding arbitration and and and also potentially how many then later claims that you get on the guaranteed fund okay there they come out of finance well it is certainly something over 10 would be a fairly accurate number of the number of contracts we read that have a arbitration clause in it um when they actually go through arbitration that's a lower number because uh it's a pretty i mean there's there's a few more steps that need to be taken in order to enact arbitration the homeowner has to file for arbitration the contractor has to respond to that filing or if the contractor doesn't respond at all arbitration can occur with just the homeowner uh going through without the uh the respondent party even showing up but then uh so after you get an arbitration award the arbitration award needs to specifically specify home improvement unsatisfactory incomplete or abandoned home improvement work we don't pay out on consequential damage we don't pay out for punitive we don't pay out lawyers fees we pay out our law specifically pays out for incomplete abandoned or unsatisfactory home improvement work so an arbitration clause an arbitration award needs to specify that and if it doesn't we can't pay out on it it either needs to go back to arbitration or they're going to need to go to civil court at that point so it's a small percentage they get a small percentage on it all right so finally complain against a licensed contractor the contractor has 30 days to respond the responses are given to the investigator and the investigator really is not someone it's not a expert in the home improvement industry investigator is someone who is gathering documents uh trying to determine if if this complaint has merit investigator can determine that there's it doesn't even fall under the jurisdiction of the home improvement commission it's a complaint that uh the residence was out of state there was a virginia home or something like that which paula would fall out if it uh if it was not home improvement related at all if it was demolition uh things like that they would dismiss the case pretty quickly so the investigator gathers all the documents from both the complainant and the respondent puts those together you know and determine if if it is under our jurisdiction ask the the homeowner at that point to file a claim so we have the complaint process is complete with the investigation now we're going to move forward to the claim process where we're actually trying to determine if there's a monetary award that we can issue the homeowner so the the investigators going that far they've determined there's there's some married here uh they're they're going to go ahead and send a claim form to the homeowner and the homeowner now will try to determine actual loss they determine actual loss uh by using an expert in the industry to give them an estimate to complete their contract an expert in the industry would be a licensed home improvement contractor a licensed home inspector a licensed architect a licensed engineer someone of that nature uh and you see i use the word license we need a licensed individual to become the expert in the industry to give us the a invoice a proposal an estimate something that says what the actual loss what the actual amount of money it would take to complete that contract so that uh the homeowner will submit a claim form to us once we get a completed claim form it is sent to a hearing we actually use the office of administrative hearings to conduct our hearings the hearing will go before an administrative law judge and the administrative law judge will issue a recommended decision on whether um the uh the claim is either dismissed or it's given a monetary value of what the alj thought that the amount that they thought the homeowner has suffered the actual loss that the homeowner suffered uh when we get that and when it is starting to go towards the hearing process uh we get the claim form and it's submitted uh reviewed and we're ready to send it to the office of administrative hearings um we send it over there and they they have a docket secretary the docket secretary will set a hearing date usually within a 90-day period for an alj to sit before an alj or have a hearing for an alj after the lj has conducts the hearing there's another 90-day period where the lj can issue their recommended decisions so that's half a year right there just at oah so this is a lengthy process it can be i mean by the time you submit your complaint to the time you get an actual check from the comptroller's office could be as long as a year or even longer if there's appeals periods uh so we get our recommended order back from the alj it comes to the commission we've presented to a panel of commissioners we have nine home improvement mhic commissioners of those nine we take a panel of three and the panel of three will review the recommended decision and issue a proposed order the proposed order will become final after 52 days if the appeals period is 52 days if it's not appealed by the contractor at that point the contractor can appeal it to an exceptions hearing an exceptions hearing would be a hearing before a panel of commissioners uh the exceptions hearing is uh intended not to bring in new evidence if the evidence was already presented in front of the lj uh it's just to argue whether you know uh other exceptions or other reasons that that the uh contractor or homeowner may think uh the issue was incorrect the exception can be filed by either the homeowner or the contractor the panel commissioners will then they can amend that recommended decision they can dismiss the recommended decision they can uh or accept the recommended decision so and then it becomes a proposed order and then again it's got to go through that proposed order can become a final order in 52 days if it's not appealed to circuit court at that point uh i think that's it for that particular slide um so we have a guarantee fund it's a very healthy fund it's there it's uh guaranty fund is funded by licensed contractors license contractors pay a hundred dollar fee as a new original contractor and every two years they renew and that every two year renewal period they pay 120 fee into the guaranteed fund uh it's very healthy we pay claims out after the final order all the imperial periods have been exhausted we issue an order for the uh or we issue it invoice to the controller's office now cut a check in about six weeks so again adding to more time um to get a check now our guarantee fund is capped at twenty thousand dollars per contractor so if you have a a homeowner has a contract with a contractor and the unsatisfactory and complete work amounts to more than twenty thousand dollars we are capped at that twenty thousand dollar rate or the total amount the homeowner has paid the contractor so far so whichever is less so if the contractors only the homeowners only paid seventeen thousand dollars of a sixty thousand dollar contract for example the total amount that we can pay out is 17. um so and then it's further capped each contractor is limited to a total complaint total claims of a hundred thousand dollars per contractor so we can have a larger pool of homeowners uh you know say i had just to give you a quick example 20 homeowners that had 10 000 claims each and they were completely adjudicated and awarded we would hold back paying any of those homeowners because that would likely and did exceed the hundred thousand dollar cap that's a two hundred thousand dollar cap for or two hundred thousand dollars in monetary awards we can only pay fifty thousand fifty percent to each one of those homeowners so um we do have to prorate those if it gets beyond that hundred thousand dollar amendment uh we do conduct a guarantee fund workshop is uh conducted by the assistant attorney general and it is for homeowners and contractors it's conducted in our building over at 500 north calvert street and uh it is conducted once a month and is well attended and it gives some very insightful information to how to go through the process and the whole complaint process that would be you know worthwhile attending um i i did kind of glossed over the complaint process the claim process we have what's called a small claim we have a limited small claim if if your claim a homeowner's claim is 7 500 or less it's considered a small claim and if the contractor doesn't respect disputed or doesn't respond at all we can make that payment very quickly out to the homeowner this 7 500 or less claim um but if the contractor says no i want a hearing we have to send it to oah and it has to take the longer route um that's that's the claim process okay um i um i wanna i wanna flag on something that you you mentioned earlier about the um about binding arbitration and that the importance that the order from the arbitrator say um that it is specifically for unsatisfactory incomplete or abandoned by a licensed home improvement contractor work uh and that it's specifically not and specifically call out this is the total amount for that and that if there be other amounts that are awarded for say attorney's fees or something else consequential damage the contractor ran over my light pole when he was on the job things of that nature we don't pay out on it's not written into our law yeah and so if that's the case for um if that's the case for arbitration is that also the case if somebody decides that they want to file a suit first a lawsuit first um does that also need to be in the judge's order in order to for that person to get a payout from the guarantee fund it does and we have to determine that in some manner they don't have to use the exact words but in some manner it has to show that this was for home improvement work or for completing the contract um things of that nature so that that that's an important language in any order that we receive okay any ruling in any courtroom yeah um yeah so you and um you had also mentioned that there is a one-year period for uh an unlicensed contract for a homeowner to file a complaint with you all about an unlicensed contractor what about what about for a licensed contractor so claims against licensed contractors the complaint needs to come in within three years of the last time the contract was on the job well with due diligence the homeowner should could have known that the that there was a problem with the the work that the contractor did let me explain so let me give you an example that'll be the easiest way if a roofing project was completed by the contractor a patch roof on new roof whatever it was and it has an internal leak and it doesn't show itself it doesn't come through the drywall for until a big storm two years later where there was a small leak in its um and it doesn't show itself it wasn't obvious we will still take that complaint from the date that the homeowner should have known so there's an obvious leak now the ceiling is starting to come down or giant water stain we will extend it to that point so even two five seven years later if the roof was poor workmanship it wasn't done to the standards of the industry we will take that complaint and then extend that three-year period from them but in general we have a three-year window where we can take that complaint claim against a licensed contractor but that also applies to the claim so the claim cannot be paid out you cannot receive a monetary award if the claim isn't received within that three-year period so there's often if we're pushed right up against that window that complaint and that claim can come in at the same time and we can get that under that uh three year window that we have so it's really helpful um so can you tell me uh kind of what what things make a homeowner like what evidence what what what makes a homeowner successful in working with your office and demonstrating their case that they're that there was poor workmanship done well certainly we need the expert you get you get another contractor come in and give you an estimate and say oh no this wasn't done up to the standards in the industry you can also use uh manufacturer's specifications to determine if it was done up to the end standard of the industry if the nailing pattern was correct for the reaping shingles or the flooring or whatever was put down um that's that's important to us what was the question again because i had another uh what what makes like what evidence or what makes homework successful yeah and but the homeowner has to when it when when preparing for a hearing they have to look like they've made every effort they want to be the the good person they want to be the person that made every effort with that contractor to try to get that contractor back to complete that job licensed contractors now and uh and you know you're going to be well prepared you've gone in and you've got your estimates uh you have photos the burden of proof at a hearing is on the homeowner so you have to present your evidence and uh you know in a manner that's that's going to prove your point um remember that judge is impartial so that the contractor is going to defend his position it's the best advice i can get yeah um so uh i can you i think when we were preparing for this we were talking a little bit about the times that you get called to testify both in criminal complaints and then in civil complaints can you talk a little bit about that yeah myself uh i'm the uh custodian of the record so that's a title that i carry so the records of the home improvement commission are important records when we take criminal cases to court we're going to provide documentation we're also swearing as witnesses myself and or any of the investigators will attend criminal trials and we're just simply there as a study in the records we're here there to swear and attest that the criminal has never or did not hold a license with the home improvement contractor or was not licensed at the time to be doing the work that they were doing the home improvement work that they were doing so so we'll often attend court we're in court um i would say three to four times a day in different jurisdictions around the state to address unlicensed work civil cases uh we aren't experts in the industry a judge will quickly determine whether we are or we aren't but they'll put us on the stand and we can testify to the records or to what information was gathered but uh we can't testify to the workmanship so in civil cases we're there in a little more limited role okay uh we did get one question that we got a question that came in that asked if there was a statute of limitations that may limit the time a claim can be considered by the commission o we i guess we talked about when a claim could be filed right which is a three-year period but that i i guess if if lim is the time that um a claim could be considered if you were talking uh yeah i think i understand the question no a claim once it's submitted it it's it's we have the clock has stopped we have accepted the claim and and we can sit on that claim for a variety of reasons until it's fully adjudicated but there is no limit once that claim is submitted to get it to a hearing or to fully adjudicate that claim um so but but you did mention that there was the sort of to get the comment yeah like there's a 30-day window to kind of get it to the investigator or i'm sorry for the contractor and then and then there's this sort of period for the investigator to look at things and then once it gets sent to the alj it's a kind of 90-day window for the hearing and then another 90-day window for the decision yeah but otherwise not necessarily anything no and the claim could come in but it also could be amended so we want to get that claim in because we want to stop that clock but a claim could be amended up to the point of the hearing so a claim if you find that amount that you have is is just not satisfactory you can go ahead and have another contractor come in and amend that clean number it's it's probably wise to get more than one licensed contractor architect engineer whoever to give you an estimate to complete so that you do have uh the data you need to receive the monetary award you're after um so just for just for fun um what is what's a case maybe recently that you you were like the most proud of or like the happiest with the results or something like that well i mean certainly the there's a lot of i mean getting a hardened criminal off the off the uh off the streets pretty important and a lot of them prey on elderly and the problem we have on on that side is that the elderly are more likely not to submit a complaint they're more likely they're embarrassed they don't even want to tell their children we have a problem getting their cases in here so we have a paver who's recently given us a lot of trouble uh just going to elderly convince them to write a check right there at the door driving them to an atm uh so they'll make withdrawals for cash withdrawals things of that nature and we just got one uh just finally got a five year sentence on on a recent paper that was uh but it took multiple multiple times and yeah um you know we need the participation of everybody the state's attorney's office uh the homeowner uh the citizens the public everybody has to coordinate you know collaborate together to yeah to get the some of these hardened criminals off the street yeah yeah i mean that certainly fits with what we see in other areas about older adults not wanting to file complaints when we have that same problem and i'll attend senior centers and i'll actually talk to senior centers and um you know i can ask them how many have you had uh home improvement work done their hands go up how many of you had problems with the home improvement and you know almost all their hands go right back up yeah and i want all of them to see me after the show because they don't take care of they don't want to come forward and it's tough it's tough to get them to to come forward and that's the easy prey for some of these guys yeah um what would you say is the biggest misconception about what your office does uh well certainly i mean this is going to be it's going to hurt a little bit because uh when i walked into that office it certainly was the attitude that the homeowner was always right and you know this is uh coming from a contractor's point of view there are contractors out there that are put in bad situations by homeowners and there are believe it or not homeowners that prey on contractors um and intentionally hire on licensed contractors and and will get us into trouble because they know that they don't have to pay the unlicensed contractor and uh you know that's that's a problem um house flipping now is a is taking off uh there's a large house flipping community out there right now our laws are probably not written to address house flipping properly uh this is a pretty new um new problem for us uh real estate is trying to deal with it as well they're flipping real estate and selling homeowners properties that aren't properly improved um not done up to the standards of the industry and we're trying to address that we're working with our legislators to try to address house flipping is a problem in general too so that's some of the areas we're working on um i don't see any more questions that have come in um if anyone has anything that they think of uh after this presentation they're welcome to reach out to to mbls and we will we will put you in contact with david or attempt to address your your questions um david i want to thank you so much for your presentation today this has been really informative for me um i hope it's been informative for for the viewers uh i want to call out uh on our website if you are looking for this since this is recorded what we're going to do is we're going to post it to our website under attorney resources and so you can see on the screen under it's under volunteer there's attorney resources i also want to flag our pro bono portal so when you're thinking gosh i really appreciate mbls putting together this uh webinar for me i'd really like to thank them by taking a case um there are you can go to our pro bono portal and sort by uh by case type by um by county and find the kind of case that you're you're looking for um oh we got one more question um uh so the the question we received is can sales representatives sign contracts on behalf of contractors so we talked a bit about how both its contractors and sales reps that you licensed can you talk a little bit more about that so a licensed sales home improvement salesman may or sales person may negotiate or sign a contract on-site in the office at shows wherever a contractor a licensed contractor is actually a contractor salesman a contractor can negotiate or sell but they can also perform or hire people to perform the home improvement work so a contractor can do it all but a sales person is limited to uh sales and negotiation but they they can bind the contractor to they do uh the contractor actually has 10 days to accept or deny a salesperson's contract they they take no action it's after 10 days it comes behind okay but obviously if they start doing the work then yeah yeah they have to wait out that five day waiting or seven days okay if they're 65 or over all right that is certainly some useful information um uh the so the other thing that i want to call out is that we have a number of other trainings that we're going to have coming up um tomorrow we're having a training on vacation uh if uh and then in september we've got uh a training on the intersection of human trafficking and immigration uh we're gonna be on the september 19th we're gonna have a training on changes in the law that happened in the legislature this year a couple couple of different effective dates on some of those laws july 1 october 1 and i think some that are coming effective in january 1 but most of them become effective october 1. so this is going to be timely for that and then we're going to have a real fun training about building a case with discovery and evidence in district court uh so you will some of those are not yet up on our events page but you will find them very soon on our mblslaw.org events page and you can sign up there and i do want to call out again that if if you're looking for this presentation it's under handouts you can download the pdf of this presentation all the links are live in there if you want to be able to pull up finding that light doing that license search or figuring out how to help people get a license or anything else and uh with that i want to just thank david so much for uh coming by and and uh helping us with this well you're you're welcome amy i i appreciate it and thanks for the nbls and all the viewers as well so please contact us you need anything we're here to help uh oh we got one more question oh it's just it's just a thank you all right well thank you too thank you for watching all right i hope everyone has a great rest of their day and a great uh i guess end of summer all right thanks so much