New law updates regulations for home improvement contracting, helps maintain industry standards

LOUISIANA (KLFY) — Senate Bill 392, which went into effect on Aug. 1, introduced significant updates to regulations over Louisiana contractors.

Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors’ Chairman Lee Mallet said the passing of Senate Bill 392 not only adds regulations to home improvement contracting, but it also protects the homeowner and maintains high quality industry standards.

The new law reduces the cost threshold for when certain licenses are required for construction and home improvement. Any work over $50,000 will require a residential license. Home improvement licenses no longer allow contractors to perform any work critical to a building’s integrity. This ensures major structural changes are handled only by fully licensed professionals with better regulation and oversight.

“They should have never been allowed to do that unless they wanted to become licensed residential contractors. Go through the C.I. Be a real licensed contractor. They were skirting the law by using this old home improvement registration. The law basically lowered the threshold, and you can no longer build any structure that includes the things I’ve just said,” Mallet said.

Mallet said homeowners will be able to steer away from fraudulent and under-qualified contractors because of the new law.

“It makes us look bad in our trade. Those guys need to get out of business. They shouldn’t be in the business. My personal opinion, I want to get them out. I mean, they want to be licensed contractors. They want to follow the law. They want to do what’s right. Great. But if you’re not going to do that and go be something else,” Mallet said.

Mallet invites anyone who wants more insight to follow the Mallet Buildings’s social media page where he delivers vital information involving everything you need to know about the industry.