Okay, let’s make this a little easier. PLEASE, follow these instructions if you’re going to hire a contractor to remodel your home.
First – start here:
https://fortress.wa.gov/lni/bbip/Search.aspx
This tells you if your prospective contractor is licensed, bonded, and insured. If you cannot find your contractor listed – ask them for their UBI number or Washington State Contractor’s license number and run the search based on that. The search engine for names is spotty at best.
DON’T JUST TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT! Lots of contractors lie about their license status. Make sure you can find them on this site.
Also, you want to see if he’s been involved in prior companies that have closed down or had their license suspended. One of the oldest tricks in the book is to open up as a new company if your license gets pulled by LNI.
Please click on the name of each prior company that is listed and give it the same amount of scrutiny that you give the current company.
For example, one of the contractors who is mentioned positively in this post (run the search yourself, don’t get mad at me for pointing this out) had his license suspended by LNI at a previous company he owned. Most likely for the bond impairment reason I mention you should look for below.
If it were me, I would be very cautious of any contractor who had his license suspended previously, as it either requires negligence (failing to renew insurance, bond impairment or failure to renew license)or takes a LOT to get LNI to act. Either way, if a contractor can’t keep himself consistently licensed, bonded or insured, you don’t want to hire him.
Also look for lapses in license. Many contractors will have a couple of companies they owned/ran over time – i.e. they switched from a sole proprietorship to an LLC or S-Corp. This is fairly normal and nothing to worry about. What you want to make sure is that they were in business the whole time. If there are big lapses in their license from company to company, you definitely need to know why before hiring them.
Next, on bond – if ANYTHING is listed under “impaired date” that means that someone filed a lawsuit or took other action against the bond (which means something went very wrong) and the bond had to pay out (which means that the claim was legitimate – anyone who has ever had to sue to get a bond to pay out will know that it doesn’t happen easily). If you see this, you should stay away. Make sure to look at prior companies for this too.
Also, look down at the bottom where it says “summons/complaint informaton” and “warrant information”. **THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART** – if you see anything listed under this section, it means that another party is suing this contractor. **IF YOU SEE ANYTHING LISTED HERE – EVER – STAY AWAY**
Up at the top, under “Printer Friendly” – click on the two links that say “Verify Workers Comp Premium Status” and “Check for Dept. of Revenue Account” and go to the two websites to make sure that your contractor is paying his taxes. Chances are that if he’s not, then he’s not paying his subcontractors or suppliers also, and your property will get liened.
Lastly, run these searches for your contractor’s name and company name:
http://dw.courts.wa.gov/index.cfm?fa=home.superiorSearch&terms=accept&flashform=0
http://dw.courts.wa.gov/index.cfm?fa=home.namesearch&terms=accept&flashform=0
For the name search – type in the last name of the owner of the company and the first initial only (in case of misspellings).
For the business name search – use “King County Superior Court”, select “Civil” as the case type, and go back a few years – say to 2005. This is a double-check to see if anyone is suing your contractor currently, as the lag on LNI’s website can be 30-60 days.
One last item to note: Do not trust online reviews as a reliable source unless they are from a paid site like Angie’s List (or similar). The contractor that we went after had his friends/family posting phony reviews for him on these websites. It happens all the time. I’m not saying they’re all fake, but a review on a site that requires a paid subscription should carry more weight than one that anyone can post on. And the state resources available (which are in 20 different places and can be confusing) will actually get you the information you need, as long as you know where to look.
And if you find a great contractor, I’d love a recommendation. I’m looking for one myself. I’ve got a list of 10 to interview, and will make sure that I don’t make the very expensive mistakes this time that I did last time.
