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Section §7031 bars an unlicensed contractor from bringing or maintaining an action to collect compensation for work that required a license. The contractor cannot recover the unpaid balance, regardless of work quality.

A contractor's license may be issued to a sole proprietor, a partnership, a corporation, a limited liability company, or a joint venture, so two people sharing ownership may use a partnership, a corporation, or an LLC. (a) is a real and lawful arrangement, but it gives one spouse the license and the other the status of employee, which is not the equal responsibility the question asks about. (c) invents a rule that co-ownership requires a corporation. (d) fails because a trust is not among the entity forms that may hold a license.

§7068(a) requires the board to make an applicant show the degree of knowledge and experience in the classification applied for, plus general knowledge of the building, safety, health and lien laws and of the administrative principles of the contracting business. §7065(a) is where the registrar tests that by written examination, and 16 CCR §825 supplies the four years of journey-level experience within the preceding ten. §7068(b) says who may appear to qualify — the individual owner, a general partner, a responsible managing officer, manager or member, or a responsible managing employee — and §7068(c) adds that a responsible managing employee must be permanently employed and actively engaged, meaning 32 hours a week or 80 percent of the hours the business operates, whichever is less. Age, personal financing and prior business ownership appear nowhere in any of it, which is what makes (a), (c) and (d) wrong.

§7027.1(a) makes it a misdemeanour for any person to advertise for construction work covered by the chapter unless that person holds a valid licence in the classification so advertised, with the single allowance that a licensed building or engineering contractor may advertise as a general contractor, and §7027.1(c) adds a fine of $700 to $1,000 on top of any other punishment. §7059.1(a) attacks the same conduct from the name side, barring a business name that indicates the licensee is qualified in classifications its licence does not carry. So holding a C-10 buys no right to advertise roofing, which is (a)'s mistake; the trades being adjacent is beside the point, which is (b)'s; and no dollar figure makes advertising outside a classification lawful, which is (c)'s — the $1,000 in §7048(a) is about who needs a licence at all, not about what a licensee may advertise, and §7048(c) withdraws even that exemption from anyone who advertises as a contractor. §7030.5 separately requires the licence number in all of it.

Under §7076, a contractor must report a qualifier change within 90 days. If the license is left without a qualifying individual and the contractor fails to act, the CSLB may suspend the license until a qualified replacement is associated.

A contractor license is issued to a specific entity under §7065. The death of a general partner dissolves the partnership as it was constituted, so the surviving partner must notify the CSLB and, typically, apply for a license for the new business form.

Under §7028, it is a misdemeanor to engage in the business or act in the capacity of a contractor without a license when one is required. Repeat violations carry escalating penalties, including higher fines and possible jail time.

Maintaining the §7071.6 contractor license bond is a condition of an active license. If the bond lapses, the CSLB may suspend the license, and the contractor cannot lawfully contract until a valid bond is reinstated.

§7059(a) says it outright: nothing prevents a specialty contractor from taking and executing a contract involving two or more crafts, provided the work in the other crafts is incidental and supplemental to the craft it is licensed for, and 16 CCR §831 is the board's definition of that phrase. (b) treats the C classifications as one licence when each is separately applied for and qualified. (c) ignores that general building is Class B under §7057, a classification the licensee would have to add. (d) reaches into Class A general engineering under §7056. §7059(b)(1) adds the public-works twist worth remembering: the awarding authority sets the classification needed to bid, and no prime contract may go to a specialty contractor whose classification is less than a majority of the project.

§7076.5(a) lets a contractor inactivate the licence by filing the prescribed form with the current certificate, and the holder of an inactive licence is not entitled to practise as a contractor until it is reactivated; §7076.5(c) keeps the inactive licence valid for four years from its due date. The attraction is §7076.5(d): while the licence is inactive the bonding requirements of §7071.6, §7071.8 and §7071.9, the qualifier requirement of §7068, and the workers' compensation requirement of §7125 all fall away, and §7071.6(c) says the same from the bond's side. (b) is not free: §7141(a) does allow renewal within five years of expiration, but the record reads expired for the whole gap and contracting during it is a misdemeanour under §7028(a). (c) is impossible — §7075.1(a) forbids transferring any licence — and (d) is the very thing §7076.5(a) denies.

The prime contractor has its own skin in this. §7118 makes entering into a contract with a contractor while that contractor is not licensed a cause for disciplinary action against the licensee who did it, and no knowledge requirement appears anywhere in the section. §7031(a) then stops the unlicensed sub suing for its money, and §7031(b) lets whoever paid it recover everything back, so an unlicensed sub in the chain is a live problem for the prime's own books as well. The board's public record is the only source that answers the question at the moment it matters: §7124.6(d) publishes the date, nature and disposition of legal actions and §7124.6(e) keeps citations posted for five years after compliance, so the lookup shows not just whether a licence exists but whether it is suspended, expired or carrying discipline, and in which classification. (a), (b) and (c) all rest on the sub's own say-so, and a printed card is exactly what an expired licensee still has in his pocket.

§7059.1(a) is a flat prohibition with no cure: a licensee shall not use any business name that indicates the licensee is qualified to perform work in classifications other than those issued for that licence, nor any name incompatible with the type of entity licensed. The word 'general' points straight at the two classifications a specialty contractor does not hold — general engineering under §7056 and general building under §7057 — so the name itself is the violation, whatever the contractor says afterwards. That is why (c) fails: nothing in §7059.1 turns on an oral explanation, and the consumer reading the advertisement is precisely the person the section protects. (b) is simply false, and §7059.1(b) adds a second limit by allowing only one business name for each licence. (d) invents a translation exemption; the test is what the name conveys, not the language it is written in. §7027.1(a) runs alongside, making it a misdemeanour to advertise for work in a classification the advertiser does not hold.

§7028.7(a) is mandatory rather than discretionary: if on inspection or investigation, whether on a complaint or otherwise, the registrar has probable cause to believe a person is acting in the capacity of, or engaging in the business of, a contractor or salesperson without a licence or registration in good standing, and that person is not otherwise exempt, the registrar shall issue a citation. §7028.7(c) requires each citation to be in writing and to describe the basis with particularity, and §7028.7(b) extends the power to the responsible officer or employee of a public entity that awards a contract to an unlicensed contractor after written warning, by way of §7028.15. (a) confuses a licensing citation with a criminal seizure. (c) is impossible on the facts — there is no licence to revoke, which is the whole premise. (d) skips the hearing a cited person may request, and the criminal route in §7028 belongs to a prosecutor and a court, not to the board.

§7071.19(a) makes liability insurance a condition of issuing, reinstating, reactivating or continuing an LLC's licence, on top of any bond this article requires, and it must answer damages from acts, errors or omissions arising out of the contracting services the company provides. §7071.19(b) sets the size: an aggregate limit of not less than $1,000,000 where five or fewer persons are listed as personnel of record, plus a further $100,000 for each person beyond five, and never more than $5,000,000 in any one designated period. The LLC separately files the $100,000 employee wage and benefit bond under §7071.6.5, which is a bond rather than insurance. That is why (b) is wrong twice over: what the statute requires is a policy, not money, and nothing is deposited with the board. (c) invents a headcount — the number of listed personnel only moves the insurance limit — and (d) invents a waiting period that no section imposes on any entity.

§7030.5 requires every licensee to include the licence number in all construction contracts, in subcontracts and calls for bid, and in all forms of advertising the registrar prescribes, so (a) fails on its face however good the underlying work may be. §7027.1(a) makes it a misdemeanour for any person to advertise for covered work without holding a licence in the classification advertised, with a fine of $700 to $1,000 on top of any other punishment. That disposes of (b), because §7027.2 opens the door to an unlicensed advertiser only where the aggregate price is under $1,000 and the ad says the person is unlicensed, and it disposes of (d) as well, since advertising trades outside the classification held is advertising without a licence in the classification advertised. Only (c) carries the number and stays inside the class.

Contractors must keep the CSLB informed of current contact information. Reporting an address or telephone change ensures the contractor receives renewal notices and official correspondence and that the public record is accurate.

Under §7068.2, when a qualifier disassociates, the contractor must notify the CSLB and replace the qualifier within the time allowed. Failure to associate a new qualifying individual can result in suspension or invalidation of the license.

Painting is a recognized Class C specialty trade (C-33) under §7058. A contractor performing only painting work above the $1,000 minor-work threshold needs the C-33 specialty classification, not a general engineering or general building license.

§7031(a) bars any person engaged in the business or acting in the capacity of a contractor from bringing or maintaining an action to collect compensation for work requiring a licence without alleging that they were a duly licensed contractor at all times during the performance of that act or contract, and it says so expressly regardless of the merits of the cause of action. The moment that matters is therefore the whole period of performance, not the filing date in (a) or the payment date in (c). §7031(d) adds how it is proved once licensure is controverted: a verified certificate of licensure from the board establishing proper licensure throughout. §7031(b) is the mirror image and the reason good work cannot save (d) — the person who used an unlicensed contractor may sue to recover all compensation already paid, however well the job was done. The one carve-out §7031(a) names is for contractors each individually licensed who fail to comply with §7029's joint venture licence.

§7065(b)(1) issues licences to individual owners, partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies and participating tribes, and §7065(b)(1)(A)-(B) requires every officer, member, responsible manager, director or partner to be listed as personnel of record; §7068(b) then attaches a qualifying individual to that entity. One licence per entity is what lets the record answer the only question a homeowner or a claimant really has: which legal person is responsible for this work, and who qualifies it. §7075.1(a) completes the logic by making the licence untransferable, so the answer cannot be moved from one business to another. (b) and (d) treat the rule as workload or revenue, which no section supports, and (c) invents a federal rule where contractor licensing is entirely state law.

§7124.6(e)(1)(A) is precise about both ends: a citation is disclosed from the date of issuance and for five years after the date of compliance — so paying the penalty and correcting the violation starts the five years running rather than ending the disclosure, which is (a)'s mistake. The same paragraph adds a condition worth knowing: if further disciplinary action is filed against the licensee during those five years, all of the disciplinary actions stay posted for as long as the most recent one is disclosable, so a second citation extends the first. §7124.6(e)(1)(B) also puts the disclosure onto the record of any other licence that shares a qualifier listed among its personnel of record. (b) is simply wrong, because §7124.6(d) publishes the date, nature and disposition of all legal actions. (d) errs in the other direction: the section ends disclosure at the close of the stated period, and it gives accusations that ended in suspension, stayed suspension or stayed revocation a seven-year window under §7124.6(e)(2). The short version is the letter of admonishment, disclosed for one or two years under §7124.6(c)(2).

Project abandonment is grounds for discipline under §7107, and a homeowner harmed by the contractor's violation may also file a claim against the §7071.6 contractor license bond to recover damages caused by the misconduct.

B&P §7071.19 requires an LLC licensee to carry liability insurance with an aggregate limit of at least $1,000,000 where five or fewer persons are listed on the license, plus $100,000 for each additional listed person, capped at $5,000,000. (a) and (c) state flat figures and miss the scaling, which is the whole design of the section. (d) inverts it into a per-person minimum with no floor. None of these should be confused with the separate $100,000 LLC worker bond under §7071.6.5, which answers wage and fringe-benefit claims rather than injury liability.

B&P §7071.6.5 makes a $100,000 surety bond a condition of issuing, renewing or keeping an LLC contractor licence. It runs to the LLC's own employees, for wages, interest on wages and fringe benefits — and where a collective bargaining agreement applies, to welfare, pension and apprenticeship fund contributions. It is separate from, and additional to, the $25,000 licence bond under §7071.6, which protects consumers rather than employees. (Do not look for this in §7065.1: that section governs examination waivers.)

Under B&P §7068.2, when a qualifying individual is disassociated from a license, the licensee must notify the Registrar in writing within 90 days. Failure to do so or to replace the qualifier within the statutory window subjects the license to automatic suspension.

§7068.1(a) makes the qualifier responsible for exercising supervision and control of the employer's or principal's construction operations to secure compliance with the contractors' law, and §7068.1(c)(4) lists what that means: supervising construction operations, making technical and administrative decisions, checking jobs for proper workmanship, and supervision on the construction site. It does not mean swinging the hammer, as (a) assumes, and it is not satisfied by the paper-only roles in (b) and (c) — a qualifier who lends a name without that control commits a misdemeanor punishable by a $3,000 to $5,000 fine under §7068.1(e).

B&P §7028.7(c) requires each citation for unlicensed contracting to carry an order of abatement and a civil penalty of not less than $1,500 nor more than $15,000, so $15,000 is the ceiling. (a) is the floor of that same range, which is the near-miss for anyone who remembers one number from the section. (c) is the §7071.6 contractor's license bond, a different sum entirely and not a penalty. (d) assumes the penalty equals the unlawful contract price; it does not, and the Registrar may cite well above or below what the job was worth.

§7112 makes the omission or misrepresentation of a material fact in obtaining, renewing, or adding a classification to a licence a cause for disciplinary action, and §7090 lets the registrar deny, cite, temporarily suspend or permanently revoke the licence for any such cause — so forged certifications and a false experience affidavit go to whether the licence should exist at all, which is why (a)'s warning misses the point even if the finished work was sound. (b) treats a money cushion as a substitute for discipline; a bond protects claimants and buys no forgiveness. (d) inverts the process: reinstatement after a revocation is something the licensee has to petition for and prove, never a date that arrives on its own.

§7109(b) makes a willful departure from or disregard of plans or specifications in any material respect a cause for disciplinary action where it is prejudicial to another and the owner has not consented — which is exactly substituting smaller beams for the stamped structural design. (b) is the near miss most candidates take: §7110 reaches willful violation of the building laws themselves, and of the safety, labor and workers' compensation laws, so it would come in if the smaller beams also broke a code provision or a permit condition, but the charge for ignoring the drawings is §7109. (c) is an exemption from licensure for jobs under $1,000 that need no building permit, not a discipline section, and §7031(a) in (d) is the civil bar on an unlicensed contractor suing for payment.

B&P §7113 makes a licensee's failure in a material respect to complete a construction project for the price stated in the contract a cause for discipline, which is exactly what the owner's higher completion cost evidences. (a) would require evidence that project money went somewhere else, and nothing in the facts says it did. (c) polices the paperwork of the contract, not the performance of it. (d) is a reporting duty about the qualifying individual and has nothing to do with abandoned work.

§7059.1(b) allows a licensee to conduct business under only one name for each license, and §7059.1(a) bars a name that suggests classifications the license does not hold or a business form it is not; the name Maria contracts under must therefore be the name on the license. §7083(a) is how it gets there: a change to information recorded on the license, business name expressly included, must be reported to the registrar in writing within 90 days, and §7083(c) makes failing to do so a ground for discipline. (b) is the trap — a county fictitious-business-name filing satisfies the county, not the board, and both may be needed. (a) confuses trade names with entity type, and (d) invents an exemption for sole proprietors that §7083 does not give.

B&P §7071.5 limits bond claims to specified categories: homeowners injured by violations of the contractor law, persons damaged by failure to complete a construction project, employees for unpaid wages, and certain express trust fund contributions. A competitor's lost-profit claim is not a covered category.

§7090 lets the registrar, on its own motion or on the verified written complaint of any person, investigate an applicant, contractor or home improvement salesperson, and deny licensure or renewal, cite, temporarily suspend or permanently revoke a licence where that person is guilty of or commits any act or omission that this chapter makes a cause for disciplinary action. So the real question is always whether a statute names the conduct as a cause. §7110 does exactly that for the willful or deliberate disregard and violation of the state's building laws, and of its safety laws, labour laws and compensation insurance laws; §7090 adds that the registrar shall take action where a contractor has willfully and deliberately violated a state or local law on the issuance of building permits. None of the other three is a cause anywhere in the chapter: an address change is reportable to the registrar within 90 days under §7083(a) and has nothing to do with the post office, declining to bid is an ordinary business decision, and a customer's review is not conduct by the licensee at all. §7090 also reaches conduct that arose while the person was exempt under §7044, §7045, §7046 or §7048.

§7000.5(a) puts 15 members on the Board, and §7002(a) fixes the mix: one general engineering contractor, two general building contractors, two specialty contractors, one member of a building-trades labor organization, one active local building official, and eight public members, one of them from a statewide senior citizen organization. §7003 splits the appointments — the Governor names the five contractor members, the building official, the labor member and four public members, while the Senate Rules Committee and the Speaker of the Assembly each name two public members. So (a) both undercounts and erases the public majority, (c) invents an appointing authority, and (d) invents an election that no section provides.

§7058(a) defines a specialty contractor by craft: operations requiring special skill whose principal business is a specialized building trade. The individual classifications come from the board's regulations — 16 CCR §832 runs C-2 through C-61 — and 'incidental and supplemental' is defined at 16 CCR §831 and echoed in §7059(a), which lets a specialty contractor take a contract using two or more trades only where the other trades are incidental and supplemental to the one it is licensed for. (a) is exactly the self-assessment the classification system exists to replace. (b) ignores that general engineering is its own classification under §7056, with its own experience and examination. (d) confuses the scope of a licence with the §7048 minor-work exemption, which is about who needs a licence at all, not about what a C licence covers.

§7027.1(a) makes it a misdemeanor for any person to advertise for work covered by the contractors' law without holding a license in the classification advertised, punishable by a $700 to $1,000 fine on top of any other penalty. §7027.2 is the only opening: an unlicensed person may advertise only where the aggregate price is under $1,000 and the ad states that the person is not licensed, so a $20,000 remodel is outside it. (c) is the common mix-up — §7028.16 punishes unlicensed contracting for damage after a declared disaster, not advertising. (a) is a civil consequence of unlicensed work rather than a rule about ads, and (b) is about who qualifies a licensee, which this advertiser never became.

§7068(c)(1) defines a responsible managing employee as an individual who is a bona fide employee of the applicant and actively engaged in the classification of work for which that person is the qualifying individual, and §7068(c)(2) then defines both halves of the phrase: a bona fide employee is one permanently employed by the applicant, and actively engaged means working 32 hours per week, or 80 percent of the total hours per week that the applicant's business is in operation, whichever is less. The 'whichever is less' is what (a) and (c) miss from opposite sides — (a) picks a round 40-hour week the statute never uses and drops the operating-hours alternative that a part-time business relies on, while (c) simply halves the figure. (d) describes the arrangement the licence law exists to stop: qualifying more than one firm is governed by §7068.1, which requires common ownership, a subsidiary or joint venture relationship, or the same majority of partners, officers or managers, and caps the total at three firms in any one-year period — it reduces nobody's hours. A responsible managing officer's duty is stated differently again: §7068.1(a) requires supervision and control of the construction operations, defined at §7068.1(c)(3)-(4) by the activities involved rather than by a weekly hour count, and §7068.1(e) makes a violation a misdemeanour with a fine of $3,000 to $5,000.

§7068(a) leaves the degree of experience to the board, and the board's regulation, 16 CCR §825, sets it at four years of journey-level experience in the classification applied for, gained within the 10 years immediately preceding the application; journey-level means fully qualified to do the work unsupervised, and time as a foreman, supervising employee or contractor counts too. (a) shortens the period, and (d) both shortens it and treats the trade examination as a substitute for experience when it is an additional requirement everyone must meet. (b) overstates the years and imports a supervisory year the rule never demands. An applicant who wants out of the examination is looking at a different section, §7065.1, which turns on five of the last seven years on the record of a licensee in the same classification.

Bus. & Prof. Code §7030.5 requires licensees to place their contractor's license number on all contracts, subcontracts, calls for bids, and all forms of advertising used in business. The EIN is a federal tax requirement, not a CSLB disclosure rule. DIR registration numbers are required only on public works bids and contracts. CSLB headquarters address is not required content. Workers' comp policy info is disclosed via the §7125.2 exemption/declaration filed with CSLB, not printed on every contract.

§7059(a) is the only door: nothing prevents a specialty contractor from taking and executing a contract involving two or more crafts if the work in the other crafts is incidental and supplemental to the craft it is licensed for, and 16 CCR §831 is the board's definition of that phrase. There is no $5,000 carve-out, so (d) is invented — the figure in §7048(a) is $1,000, and it exempts a small job from licensure altogether rather than widening anyone's classification. (b) invents a permit the board does not issue. (c) is the most dangerous of the three, because an owner cannot consent his way around licensure and §7031(a) will still bar the contractor from suing for compensation on work that required a licence. On public work §7059(b)(1) adds a further limit: the awarding authority fixes the classification needed to bid, and no prime contract may go to a specialty contractor whose classification is less than a majority of the project.

B&P §7071.19 sets the LLC's liability insurance at an aggregate of at least $1,000,000 for five or fewer listed persons, with $100,000 added for each additional person and a $5,000,000 ceiling. (a) and (d) state flat numbers and lose the scaling that is the point of the section. (c) treats the insurance and the bond as alternatives: the $100,000 bond under §7071.6.5 answers employees' wage and fringe-benefit claims and is required in addition to this insurance, not instead of it.

Bus. & Prof. Code §7083 requires every licensee to report any change of address to the CSLB Registrar in writing within 90 days of the change. This is one of the few CSLB notification rules with a relatively long window, and the exam often tests it specifically because students assume a shorter period like 30 days. Failure to update the address can cause the licensee to miss legal notices and lead to discipline under §7090. The 10/15/30-day options are common 'gotcha' wrong answers drawn from other licensing rules.

B&P §7068.2 requires the licensee to notify the Registrar in writing within 90 days of a qualifier's disassociation, and gives the licensee 90 days from that date to replace the qualifier before the license is automatically suspended or revoked; if the notice is late, the suspension runs back to the disassociation date. (a) and (b) borrow the short reporting periods that belong to §7083 changes such as address and personnel. (c) treats renewal as the checkpoint, which would leave the firm operating without a qualifier for up to two years — precisely what the section prevents.

§7068.1(b) caps a qualifying individual at three firms in any one-year period, and §7068.1(a) permits the second or third firm only where the firms are linked: at least 20 percent common equity ownership, a subsidiary or joint-venture relationship, or the same majority of partners, officers or managers. Without that link the qualifier may act for one firm only — which is what (a) gets wrong by making the one-firm limit absolute. (b) invents a five-firm cap, and (d) treats classification as the controlling factor when a Class A license buys no extra slots. Violating the section is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of $3,000 to $5,000 under §7068.1(e).

§7029 makes the joint venture itself the licensee: the JV license is issued to the combination of licensees, every member must hold a current active license in good standing, and a lapse by any one member suspends the JV license by operation of law. Classification is the trap in (b) — §7029 lets the JV license issue in any classification in which at least one of the entities is licensed, not only one both hold. (a) borrows a license the joint venture does not hold, and (d) describes two separate contracts rather than one bid under a single joint name. An unlicensed JV cannot sue for its compensation under §7031 even though each member is individually licensed.

B&P §7059.1 forbids a contractor's name, including any fictitious business name used in advertising, from indicating or implying a classification the licensee does not hold or otherwise misleading the public about license status — so a C-10 electrical contractor may not trade as 'Acme General Construction' or 'Ace Roofing'. (a) invents a character limit the section does not impose. (c) confuses trademark law with the license law; registering a mark neither cures nor creates a §7059.1 problem. (d) describes the most ordinary contractor name there is. Note that §7030.5 separately requires the license number on advertising; §7059.1 polices the name itself.

§7075.1(a) is absolute: no license, whatever its type or classification, is transferable to another person or entity under any circumstances. The corporation is a separate legal person, so it applies under §7065 with its own $25,000 contractor bond, its own qualifying individual, and its own workers' compensation certificate. §7075.1(c)(5) does allow the old license NUMBER to be reissued to a corporation formed by the individual licensee who keeps more than 50 percent of the voting power — but only on application, which is exactly what (a) skips and (d) imagines the board does by itself. (b) invents a waiting period; and the qualifier escapes a new examination only through §7065.1, which requires five of the seven years immediately preceding the application in the same classification.

Experience is certified on CSLB's Certification of Work Experience, signed under penalty of perjury by a qualified and responsible person who personally observed the work — a former employer, supervisor, fellow journeyman, licensed contractor, building inspector, architect, or union representative. That the old employer has dissolved does not change the requirement; any of those others may sign. (a) is the most tempting wrong answer because the form is signed under penalty of perjury, but the applicant cannot certify their own experience. (b) reverses the burden — CSLB may audit, but it does not go out and verify the work. (d) fails the qualified-person test, and a false certification is itself grounds to deny or revoke under §7124.

A Class B General Building contractor, under B&P Code section 7057, builds structures requiring the use of at least two unrelated building trades or crafts. General Engineering (Class A) is for fixed works, and Class C covers a single specialty trade.

Under B&P Code section 7056, a General Engineering (Class A) contractor performs fixed works requiring specialized engineering knowledge and skill, such as dams, highways, and irrigation systems. That scope is broader than any single Class C specialty.