Of all the decisions homeowners need to make during a renovation project, perhaps none is more important than hiring a contractor who won’t rip you off.
Residential contractors often require large up-front deposits, and some bad actors, after cashing that first check, have been known to disappear.
That’s what happened to a homeowner in Lowell in 2024.
The homeowner paid Danby contractor Jordan Atwood nearly $10,400 to build a detached garage. But Atwood never did a lick of work on the job, according to the state.
“When homeowners are paying substantial amounts of money to folks who are doing construction, fraud happens,” said Jennifer Colin, director of the Vermont Office of Professional Regulation, which stripped Atwood of his license last year. “Our office gets complaints about fraud all the time.”
To help protect homeowners against shady operators, the state established a residential contractor registry in 2023.
If a contractor runs off with your money, you should definitely make a report to our office.
Jennifer Colin
The registry requires any residential contractor doing work costing more than $10,000 in Vermont to sign up with the state, use written contracts and carry sufficient insurance. The fee is $75 per year for individual contractors and $250 for businesses.
The registry exists to limit the risk to homeowners when they are hiring contractors to do substantial work on their homes, Colin said.
Requiring written contracts can give homeowners legal recourse when fraud does occur, and insurance can help homeowners recoup damages if a contractor does shoddy work. The law requires contractors to carry $1 million of insurance per occurrence and $2 million in the aggregate.
Creating the registry was a contentious endeavor. Gov. Phil Scott vetoed an earlier version of it with a lower financial threshold ($3,500) because he worried about imposing regulatory burdens on smaller contractors. The governor also argued that he didn’t see the need.
But Scott later signed off on the registry in 2023 as part of a larger housing bill, after the bar was raised to $10,000 and a number of professions were exempted. Enforcement began in 2024.
Tradespeople who already have licenses from the Department of Public Safety, such as plumbers and electricians, do not have to sign up. Also exempted are licensed engineers and architects. Those fields have separate licensing requirements.
Today the registry includes about 1,400 individuals and businesses. Colin, whose office is nestled within the Secretary of State’s Office, thinks there are many more residential contractors in Vermont who have not signed up. Her team has done significant outreach to let people know about the requirement, hanging posters at lumberyards and home supply stores and posting on Front Porch Forum.
When that doesn’t do the trick, there are other ways of getting contractors’ attention.
In May, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark filed two lawsuits against residential contractors for failing to register. Sevin Gulfield of Burlington paid a $5,000 fine, and Montpelier contractor Jesse Reeder’s civil case is still pending.
“Residential contractors provide a crucial service to our state by helping Vermonters repair or improve their homes,” Clark stated in a press release. “Registration is essential for a secure marketplace and to reassure Vermonters that businesses are operating legitimately. Residential contractors who fail to comply with the law, or rip people off, could be subject to enforcement actions.”
In addition to her office’s education and enforcement efforts, Colin hopes that homeowners will also encourage contractors to sign up. When considering a contractor, homeowners should always ask if the person is on the registry. That will send a strong message that homeowners value the regulation the registry provides, Colin said.
Still, it’s an uphill battle. Because the industry has been unregulated for so long, there’s a culture of resistance even to what Colin considered “very light” regulation.
The 1,400 people and businesses that have registered, when compared to the business filings for the industry maintained by the Secretary of State’s Office, suggest that only a fraction of contractors have signed up.
The registry is important not just to protect homeowners doing optional upgrades, such as bathroom or kitchen remodels, but also to ensure that home repairs are done right, which Colin said is vital for health and safety. Yet people are often so desperate to find contractors that they are willing to put down big deposits or overlook their lack of participation in the registry.
“What happens if you have a hole in your roof and you have to get it fixed right away?” Colin said. “People are vulnerable in this space.”
The registry is not the only form of protection available to homeowners. The Office of Professional Regulation maintains a page with links to the registry and to other entities that can help when a home improvement project goes awry.
The Attorney General’s Office has a Consumer Assistance Program that maintains a list of contractors convicted of home improvement fraud. Also included are links to the Better Business Bureau and small claims court.
One of the challenges in regulating the industry is that the line between outright fraud and poor-quality work can be “blurry,” Colin said. But when the former occurs, contractors can be removed from the registry and prosecuted.
“If a contractor runs off with your money, you should definitely make a report to our office,” she said. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Above Board: Vermont’s registry of residential contractors aims to prevent fraud in the home improvement sector”
This article appears in Nest • Summer 2026.
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