Why become licensed?

Important ideas and marketing suggestions for your customers…

• You will be regarded as a true professional.
• Licensed landscape contractors are required to have a surety bond that can be provided to your customer for financial help toward losses resulting from the contractor’s failure to meet the obligation.
• Licensed landscape contractors are required to take seven hours of continuing education (including two business related hours) a year to help keep them up-to-date with the latest techniques and products and to put them at the top of the field.
• The NC Landscape Contractors’ Licensing Board is responsible for administering Chapter 89D of the General Statutes of North Carolina for licensed landscape contractors; for safeguarding life, health, and property and maintaining a high professional standard for the landscape industry.
• Licensed Landscape Contractors are held to a higher standard than non-licensed landscapers.
• Peace of mind for your customers.
• As more businesses, municipalities and consumers become aware of the benefits, they are more likely to choose Licensed Landscape Contractors over a non-licensed landscaper.

And one more important reason…

If you are unlicensed and perform projects valued at $30,000 or more, your customers may not have to pay you. In a N.C. Supreme Court case captioned Brady v. Fulghum, an unlicensed builder sued homeowners for breach of contract. The Court ruled that the homeowners did not have to pay their builder even though he “substantially complied” with the construction contract. The Court held that “a contract illegally entered into by an unlicensed general construction contractor is unenforceable by the contractor.”

While the courts have not yet applied this case to the practice of landscape contracting, it is possible that should a similar situation occur, property owners who are under contract with an unlicensed landscaper for a project over $30,000 could tell the court that they don’t have to pay their unlicensed landscaper because the contract or agreement was unenforceable, just like the homeowner in Brady v. Fulghum.

Protect your business and yourself… get your Landscape Contractors’ license so you don’t find yourself being the first case.