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City Licensing

When you receive the application, fill it out and send it back in with full payment (varying anywhere from $25 up to $200+) and all required accompanying documentation.
In some cities you will also be required to have a fire inspector inspect your business location.
If you rent your home and you plan on running your business from your home, you may be required to get a notice of consent from the owner of the property.
Almost always you are asked to include a copy of your workers compensation insurance policy as well as your state contractors license number. If you do not plan on having any employees in the beginning (or if you will be leasing employees from a firm that handles worker's compensation) then you will be asked to submit a notice of exemption from workers compensation.
Basically this notice of exemption states that you do not have any employees and therefore are not subject to workers compensation insurance (you can click here to take a look at the Workers Compensation Exemption form we have available here at our site). One extra step I do is to provide a certificate of workers compensation from my payroll company so that I can show that my workers are covered by the firm that I lease my labor from.
In addition to having to obtain a business license for the city your office is located in, you must also obtain a business license for every city that you perform work in.
Many times you will be required to list how many employees you will have on-site and then pay a fee that is based upon how many employees you will have on-site.
Other times you will pay a flat fee and still other times the fee can be based upon the value of your portion of the project. If you under-estimate how many employees you will have (or the dollar amount of the project) you will be required to pay the difference to the city should the city audit you.
Some general contractors will require that you send them a copy of your business license as part of the contract.
If you do not obtain these business licenses and you are caught, not only will you be fined by the city but you can also cause problems for the general contractor with the city planning and inspection departments.
Sometimes the certificate of occupancy issued by the city will be held back until all subcontractors have a city business license. Not good if you hold up the certificate of occupancy process!
Not to mention the fact that your contract with your general contractor probably states in it that you are required to abide by all licensing requirements (which means you're in breach of your contract if you don't obtain a business license when required).
Some cities you will find do not require business licenses (usually because the city is not incorporated) but most often one will be required.
I've got a page here that lists many cities here in California. There's links to websites for most of them and phone numbers for a lot of them.

Article Source: http://article.constructiondirectoryproject.com

Diane Dennis Enterprises

555 NW Fairhaven Drive

Oak Harbor, WA 98277

760-490-2557 The Contractors Group.com

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