[VIDEO]: Hiring a Contractor in Oregon and Washington with Fred Millard
Portland Oregon Construction Attorney Fred Millard was a General Contractor for 17 years; this experience has given him a unique and thorough understanding of Construction Law and how it can affect contractors and property owners alike. Through the many difficulties which may arise, Attorney Fred Millard is there to protect his clients and make sure that their interests and the outcome of the project itself are not compromised. With his dedication to his clients and his hard work, Fred Millard has come to be a well-respected Construction Lawyer in Oregon and Washington.
Transcript
You know, I practice construction law and insurance law in both Oregon and Washington. Both states have state agencies that are there to protect consumers from contractors. In Washington, its called the Labor and Industry board and heare in Oregon, it’s called these the Construction Contractors Board or many people will are know it as the CCB. In terms of the CCB every contractor that does work in Oregon must be licensed and the first thing that you should ask be fore you enter any type of agreement or even ask a contractor for a bid is are you licensed? What is your license number?
Now you can take the contractor’s license number do a search on the CCB’s website than anybody has access to and you’d be surprised how much information you’ll learn about that contractor. For example, does the contractor have insurance but say the contractor guys walking on your roof and now put a hole in the roof. There’s insurance that will probably pay for that.
What happens if the contractor walks off your job? Well every contractor in Oregon is obligated to posed a bond. A prime contractors the bond a man’s twenty thousand dollars specialty contractors such as roofers or painters or a window contractors fifteen thousand dollar bond. So you wanna make sure that when you hire a contractor and contractors working you never want to let them get ahead of what they’re available bond is.
Now you notice I said available upon. That’s another thing you can check on the web. It’s easy to use website to check how many claims does this contractor have against it. Does the contractor have prior to homeowners or others that may have claims? That’s very important information.
You know when somebody’s bidding a job or looking to get the job, everybody’s nicey nicey okay and everybody is going to be on their best behavior, but they’re not gonna tell you that I have a claim that time paid or I have somebody else suing me. It’s your obligation to protect yourself, nobody’s going to do that for you. You have to make sure that you’re protected. I’ve seen many cases where a homeowner gets liened even after they paid the entire construction bill. I’ve seen faulty work that even though they put a new roof on the house, its pouring rain inside the house and try and find the contractor he’s out of business. So you have to protect yourself against these things.