Oregon Contractor Laws Part 2 – Oregon Construction Contractors Board

Part 2 in our four-part series on Oregon Contractor Laws.

Why would I be liable for my contractors actions?

Millard: So a contractor owes money for work that was done at your house, your property, and even though you pay the contractor in full, if he didn’t pay for the materials or the subcontractor work that he was supposed to pay, you are liable to that. I’ve had that happen many times in my law practice, someone will come in and say, “Well I got a lien, I got a lien and but I paid the contractor everything”. Well, unfortunately, if you don’t protect yourself, you could potentially end up paying twice. The best thing to do to avoid that is speak to an attorney. Talk to somebody that can educate you before you hire the contractor, before you give the contractor money, so that you are able to avoid those types of risks.

What is the Oregon Construction Contractors Board?

Millard: Another issue that a lot of people don’t know about is the Oregon Construction Contractors Board. The Oregon Construction Contractors Board is an agency, a state agency, Oregon state agency that is there to protect the consumer from unscrupulous contractors and the way the contractors borders, or what we call the CCB. The way it goes about doing that is it requires every contractor, whether to general or prime contractor, an electrician, plumber, etc. to have a license and along with that license in order to get that license, a contractor must be able to show that they’re proficient at doing work. Number one, number two have liability insurance so if something if they damage your house, or back their truck into your garage, you know that they’re covered to pay for such a loss and as well they have surety bond. Generally a contractor that you hired to come in and do remodeling will have a twenty thousand dollar surety bond and what that means is if the contractor doesn’t finish the job or if the contractor ends up having a lien or causing you to have a lien because you pay his bill, is a twenty thousand dollar bond that you can recover, up to twenty thousand dollar bond that you can recover from the contractor board. If you’re going to do that, it’s very important that you be assisted by an attorney. We do this at Millard and Bragg quite often.