The final public hearing was held on Tuesday Dec 12 th 2017 at the State House. The HBRA had Denis Bourbeau , Chair of Legislative Committee and Maggie Lenz, HBRA lobbiest from Ellis Mills attended the meeting via phone conference.

Denis spoke of the importance of clear language that will define who is a Contractor for the purpose of potential licensing or registration requirements.

Cost of no more than $100 per year to register is another vital consideration as we can not make participation in a program be cost prohibitive for a worker that wants to move up and become an independent.

The recent survey sent out to HBRA returned 75% votes in favor of Licensing or Registration and Denis clarified that the current position of the Home Builders of Vt is that the majority of Home Builders are in favor of some type of registration program.

Denis also stated to the committee that HBRA is in support of continuing education that will go along with a registration or Licensing program and HBRA will want to be a core provider of this education.

The remaining testimony from the hearing  was to have Registration as a preferred tool not Licensing.The main goal is to limit consumer fraud and improve accountability for the Home Construction and Remodling industry.

The committee will now be preparing a report to the legislature due Jan 1st. We will provide an update of the report when it is released.