On June 30th, The Connecticut Appeals Court ruled in favor of a licensed plumber and against a homeowner/consumer who refused to pay him. Imagine that.  The consumer contended that the licensed plumber was acting outside the scope of his license when he fixed the homeowner’s driveway and front lawn, putting them back the way he found them after repairing a sewer line on the consumer’s property at a price of $6,700.  

Why was there even an argument you ask?  Anyone who works under the Home Improvement Act in CT knows that all home improvement work, which includes swimming pools and spas, requires a written contract with various clauses such as name and address of the contractor, HIA number, date of the work, right of cancellation, etc.  If you don’t have a written contract or one that does not fully comply with the HIA, the homeowner can decide not to pay you and there is little you can do about it.  However, now if you are properly licensed with your SP1 or SP2 you are no longer governed by the mandates of the HIA even when some of the work you are performing falls outside the scope of the SP license parameters.  For instance, you are called out to repair a skimmer basket on the pool and you need to break up the concrete deck around the basket.  You are going to repair the deck when the job is finished.  The deck repair, though not a normal part of your SP license, is still protected under your license and outside of the HIA, if the work on the deck is necessary to return the property to its former condition.   The homeowner cannot then decide to not pay you by alleging that the repair on the deck was outside the scope of your license and thus subject to the HIA which would have triggered all of the written contract requirements.  Let’s chalk one up for the little guy.