Check the license before the deposit

Ask for two things, not one

The license number, and the exact name it is held under. The second half is the part people skip, and it is where the check usually fails. A van, a website and an invoice can all carry a trading name that is not the licensed entity. If the name on the contract does not match the name on the license, the number has told you nothing.

Maryland requires the license number to appear in a contractor's own advertising, so in many cases it is already printed on the material you were handed.

Where to look it up

The Maryland Home Improvement Commission keeps a public register, searchable free of charge by business name, by individual name or by license number.

Search the MHIC register

What it returns is the license status, when it expires, and whether there is disciplinary history attached. All three are worth reading, not just the first.

A salesperson is licensed separately from the contractor. If someone comes to the house to sell the job rather than to measure it, they hold their own license number, and it is a fair thing to ask for.

What the license stands behind

A contractor license in Maryland is not only a registration. To hold one, a contractor has to show a minimum period of experience, pass an examination, demonstrate financial standing, and keep liability insurance on file with the Commission.

There is also a Guaranty Fund that can reimburse actual loss caused by a licensed contractor — for work left incomplete, done incorrectly, or abandoned. It is capped per claimant and has a filing deadline, and it applies to licensed contractors. That last point is the practical argument for checking the register first: hiring outside it puts the job outside the fund as well.

Two limits on money, before anything is built

These are worth knowing because they are easy to check and hard to argue with.

No payment before the contract is signed. Not a holding deposit, not a materials advance.

No more than one third of the contract price as a deposit. Beyond that first third, the payment schedule is a matter of agreement between you and the contractor — but that opening limit is not.

The contract itself

Maryland requires a home improvement contract to be in writing, and requires specific items to be in it — among them the contractor's name, address, telephone number and license number, the license number of any salesperson involved, the approximate start and completion dates, a description of the work and the materials, and a notice telling you how to reach the Commission.

A one-line quote on headed paper is not that contract. If what you have been handed is a price and a signature line, the items above are the ones to ask for before signing.

Cancelling

Maryland gives a buyer more than one route out, and which one applies depends on how the sale happened.

• A sale made in your home — the salesperson came to you — carries a cancellation right of five business days, extended to seven if the buyer is at least 65. The seller has to hand over a separate notice of cancellation saying so.
• A home improvement contract secured by a lien on the residence carries a separate three-business-day right to rescind.

Both run from dates, and dates are why this is worth reading before rather than after.

What this site is, in this context

This site is not a contractor and holds no license. It cannot vouch for anyone, and it does not try to — what it can do is point at the register that can. The judgement, and the check, stay with you.