The primary reason that Florida licenses contractors is to protect public health, safety and welfare.  State laws accomplish these goals by preventing unqualified people from practicing a given profession or occupation.  In order to be licensed, contractors must meet minimum standards of experience and sometimes education.  Licensing is also a formal and legal way of defining a profession and includes all those who meet the predetermined standards necessary for giving the public some assurance that the people they are hiring are knowledgeable and qualified to some extent.  Licensing bodies serve society in a positive way and provide the following benefits:

• Screening applicants to ensure that they possess those minimum qualifications necessary for safe practice;

• Providing a mechanism for investigating charges of incompetence or impropriety; and

• Setting standards of practice and codes of conduct.  These standards give the public a basis for determining acceptable quality in workmanship, service and conduct.

A governmental agency that will first investigate charges of a contractor licensee's incompetence or failure to perform work and then will take appropriate disciplinary action, helps to protect the profession from incompetent, unethical, or dishonest practitioners.  It also serves notice on others that the regulatory agency will not tolerate practitioners whose activities may not be in the public interest.

IMPORTANCE OF LICENSING

Qualified tradesman may easily become a licensed contractor by following procedures from Ordinance 2002-48 outlined in this leaflet. Advertising to do building work without a contractor license in advance is as illegal as actually doing such work and all illegal operators are prosecuted to the fullest extent prescribed in the adopted contractor licensing ordinance.

Since property owners can be fined up to $5,000 for hiring an unlicensed contractor and can be held responsible for any injury to or by workers of unlicensed contractors, they do not wisely choose such a threat to themselves and generally fully cooperate in County prosecution of unlicensed contractors after discovery.

Report Unlicensed Contractors in St. Johns County.

Call the St. Johns County Contractor Hotline at

904-827-6820 or 904-827-6821.

(In our own words)

The State of Florida does not regulate the flooring industry and most other specialty trades the way it regulates Builders, Electricians, Plumbers, etc.  Thus, there is no State License available for a Floor Covering Contractor.

However, the state does allow the localized regulation of all contractors by empowering local governments to adopt and enforce ordinances pursuant to Title XXXII: Chapter 489, Florida Statutes.

Therefore, it is necessary to maintain individual licenses in every local jurisdiction that we choose to service.  Currently, St. Johns County is the only local government in Northeast Florida that offers and requires a Contractor License pursuant to St. Johns County Ordinance 2002-48.  Most other county governments and municipalities only require occupational licensure, while few reciprocate or offer no license at all.