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NC Landscape Contractors’ Licensing Board
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(NCLCLB), created by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2014 to replace the North Carolina Landscape Contractors’ Registration Board, consists of nine citizens — including Licensed Landscape Contractors, a licensed landscape architect and a member of the public — appointed by seven different entities.
The NCLCLB is responsible for administering Chapter 89D of the General Statutes of North Carolina for Licensed Landscape Contractors; safeguarding life, health and property of consumers; and maintaining a high professional standard for the landscape industry. To those ends, the board performs a variety of administrative and statute-defined duties, including: • offering examinations, • issuing Landscape Contractors’
License certificates, • issuing corporate Landscape
Contractor licenses, • maintaining licensee records, • establishing continuing education requirements, • approving continuing education courses, • receiving complaints involving
Licensed Landscape Contractors and unlicensed landscapers, and • investigating violations of
Statute 89D and the Board
Minimum Standards.
Additionally, the NCLCLB responds to inquiries from licensees, prospective licensees, consumers and the public.
The Landscape Contractors’ License law requires any landscape professional who wants to perform landscape contract work for which the price of all contracts (labor, material and other items) for a job site during any consecutive 12-month period is $30,000 or more to have a valid Landscape Contractors’ License.
“The No. 1 reason for the license is to provide consumer protection,” said Calvin Kirven, NCLCLB executive administrator. “The NCLCLB has greater authority than the previous Registration Board to help consumers who have legitimate complaints with work performed by Licensed Landscape Contractors. Licensed Landscape Contractors must now have a specific surety bond to help reimburse customers for losses resulting from the contractor’s failure to meet professional obligations.”
Before the Landscape Contractors’ License law went into effect, recourse was limited for consumers receiving inadequate landscape services, such as failed retaining walls, substandard plants, poor soil preparation and drainage/grading issues. The previous Registration Board could only advise consumers to contact an attorney to recoup their money or file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
Additionally, before the new law was established, state general contractor requirements prohibited landscapers from competing and/or qualifying for large commercial and residential contracts. Recognizing the need for important legislative changes, green industry leaders held a series of town hall meetings across the state, and feedback from the more than 1,200 landscaper attendees was overwhelmingly in favor of creating a license. With the goals of creating legislation that would provide consumer protection, identify and recognize the professional nature of landscape
contracting, provide adequate training and continuing education, and create exemptions for businesses outside the scope of landscape contracting, a steering committee of 20 landscape contractors then met over an 18-month period to organize and draft the initial provisions of the license. During the drafting process, the committee also consulted with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Licensing Board for General Contractors, as well as other industry organizations and trade groups.
The result was a law that: • better protects consumers, • eliminates the conflict with the
General Contractor License by allowing Licensed Landscape
Contractors to install landscape projects of $30,000 in value or greater within the definition of landscape contracting (i.e., without the requirement of being a Licensed General
Contractor), and • establishes Licensed Landscape
Contractors as professionals who adhere to high standards and maintain continuing education, which creates business opportunities, elevates consumer confidence and strengthens consumer protection.
Why You Should Become a Licensed Landscape Contractor
• Some of the many benefits of being a Licensed Landscape
Contractor include the following: • Licensed Landscape Contractors are regarded as professionals. • Only Licensed Landscape
Contractors can call themselves a
Landscape Contractor. • Homeowner associations, businesses, municipalities and individuals are more likely to choose or require a Licensed
Landscape Contractor over a nonlicensed landscaper, since
Licensed Landscape Contractors are held to higher standards than nonlicensed landscapers. • Customers will experience additional peace of mind knowing their Landscape Contractor is a qualified professional, especially given that Licensed Landscape
Contractors are required to have a surety bond to provide financial assistance to customers who experience loss/hardship due to a contractor’s failure to satisfactorily complete obligations. • As material and labor prices continue to rise, more landscaping projects will exceed the $30,000 license requirement threshold, and only Licensed Landscape
Contractors have the right to perform this work. • Licensed Landscape Contractors cannot be the subjects of complaints for unlicensed work.
And there is one more important reason for being licensed: If you are unlicensed and perform work valued at $30,000 or more, your customer may not have to pay you. In the North Carolina Supreme Court case Brady v. Fulghum, in which an unlicensed general contractor sued homeowners for breach of contract, the Court ruled that the homeowners did not have to pay the general contractor, 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 entirely plausible that a comparable situation involving landscaping services could result in a similar ruling. So be sure to protect yourself and your business by obtaining your Landscape Contractor’s License today!
For more information about the NCLCLB, visit www.NCLCLB.com.
North Carolina Landscape
Contractors’ Licensing Board
3901 Barrett Drive, Suite 202 Raleigh, NC 27609 919-266-8070 www.NCLCLB.com
Chairman
Kerry Danger
First term kerry.danger1@gmail.com Vice Chair
Timothy J. Boone
First term tboone@snowcreekinc.com Secretary-Treasurer
Chris W. Mitchell
First term harvestgardensnc@gmail.com
BOARD MEMBERS
Scott Arnold First term scott@arnoldLA.com Timothy J. Boone First term tboone@snowcreekinc.com Dr. Barbara Fair Second term barbara_fair@ncsu.edu Henry Hardy First term hphardy1@gmail.com Darrin Hockstra First term darrinhockstra@greenviewpartners.com Ruth C. Holcomb First term ruth@currinsnursery.com Connie Hoyes Second term connie@southerngardeninc.com
LEGAL COUNSEL
Anna Baird Choi Nichols, Choi & Lee, PLLC 4700 Homewood Court, Suite 320 Raleigh, NC 27609 919-341-2636
