CLCA Updates Legal Contacts for 2024

To better protect your company in legal proceedings, CLCA has updated its popular residential home improvement legal contract.

Construction law attorney Bill Porter, the voice of CLCA’s Attorney on Call Member benefit, reviewed and updated the contract for 2024. This member benefit is a fill-in-the-blank PDF available to members here.

All of CLCA’s legal contracts and forms include terms and conditions specific to the landscape industry. Unlike many landscape forms available from national organizations, CLCA’s comply with California’s unique laws.

For the residential home improvement contract, Porter notes that “the applicable provisions of the Business and Professions Code have not changed in any material way since I last reviewed the contract. However, since the time we last revised this document, issues have arisen in cases I have handled unrelated to this particular contract, but which cause me to suggest some of the changes I have noted.”

Porter also advises that the updated contract is “only for use when members are working for a residential homeowner on the contracting party’s home or residential grounds. Commercial contracts will be different. As you know, the provisions of the Home Improvement Contract are largely dictated by the California Business and Professions Code. We do not recommend significant changes to this document because so much of it is required by law and members could get in trouble with the CSLB if we change many of the provision and a customer makes a complaint regarding a member to the CSLB – even if totally unrelated to the form of the contract.”