Texas Roofer Arrested in Florida for Helping Hurricane Victims
reason.com
reason.com
It's a pity that we cannot trust each other enough to pool our data for our common good.
If people aren't going to use the current resources, those same people won't use the new one.
I'm all for going after scammers and prosecuting contractors who take dangerous shortcuts. But going after people who do a flawless job because they are missing some local permit is not going to help anyone.
I’d be all for an online registry where you have to register your business and verified contact info so you can be tracked down if you pull something but letting the government decide who can and cannot offer services is a scam. Lookup the requirements for a roofing contractor license in Florida. One of them is “be of good moral character“. Who gets to decide what that means? Imagine if people were as concerned about barriers to earning a living as they were about barriers to voting.
https://www.contractorcampus.com/florida-roofing-contractor-...
So an active registry and compliance department that is somehow unconnected with the concept of licensing? That's pushing the costs of proving a given contractor is competent from the contractor to the government. Ideally that would be a far more expensive system. In reality it would be an unfunded, mostly vacant department and a free-for-all for fraud.
The Florida legislature gets to decide.
> (c) Meet eligibility requirements according to the following criteria:
> 1. As used in this subsection, the term “good moral character” means a personal history of honesty, fairness, and respect for the rights of others and for state and federal law.
> 2. The board may determine that an individual applying for registration is ineligible due to failure to satisfy the requirement of good moral character only if:
> a. There is a substantial connection between the lack of good moral character of the individual and the professional responsibilities of a registered contractor; and
> b. The finding by the board of lack of good moral character is supported by clear and convincing evidence.
> 3. When an individual is found to be unqualified because of lack of good moral character, the board must furnish such individual a statement containing the findings of the board, a complete record of evidence upon which the determination was based, and a notice of the rights of the individual to a rehearing and an appeal.
Seems entirely reasonable. If you have a history of screwing over customers, delivering shoddy work, they can deny your permit. The contractor can appeal their decision and they provide all evidence they used to decide as such.
That is one of the primary functions of a Leader. Judges are included verbatim in this context by the part that says "respect for the rights of others and for state and federal law".
> the term “good moral character” means a personal history of honesty, fairness
A roofing contractor cheats on her husband, can her license be denied/revoked for dishonesty? It may be unlikely in normal circumstances but corruption is a real thing.
A guy down on his luck gets busted for drugs and goes to jail. He gets out and can't get a job because of his felony. He decides to start a roofing business. Can the government deny him a license too?
> a. There is a substantial connection between the lack of good moral character of the individual and the professional responsibilities of a registered contractor; and
> b. The finding by the board of lack of good moral character is supported by clear and convincing evidence.
A roofing contractor cheating on their husband has no substantial connection to the professional responsibilities of being a contractor. Neither does being arrested for possession. Both would be granted their license. If the person arrested for drugs was stealing copper from construction sites - they might have a hard time, but that's by design..
Most of the intended audience of that Reason article is not, however. This is written from the perspective of (and published in a journal dedicated to) "Government Regulation Claims Another Victim" and not "individual regulator[1] going way beyond appropriate enforcement".
The bottom line is that this isn't a story I trust Reason to report accurately. I'd want to see a local journalist write it up first before I'd be willing to believe that there wasn't some level of fraud suspected.
[1] Or cop, maybe. Seems like the original source is a press release from the Sheriff's office.
How does one follow from the other? Did the scammer have a valid license from another state? How does refusing to honor licenses from other states have anything to do with "seriousness"?
Whether or not to do reciprocal licensing is a political question. Having chosen not to allow it, I'm glad that Florida is actually enforcing the law against unlicensed contractors instead of looking the other way.
Second, bonding requirements would have given us a sum of money from which we could have recovered what we lost. Again, money in Florida, for us to go after in Florida courts for the scam that took place in Florida.
Any promises about whether a judgment in Tampa would allow potential victims to get ahold of this guy's money in Texas? Or whether his pulling a scam like this would cause his license to be revoked there?
Yes.
Or whether his pulling a scam like this would cause his license to be revoked there?
Yes it would.
Applicants may still be required to pay fees or take exams administered by the board in the recognizing state.
Let's say a properly trained and tried company decide to work in the aftermath of a widespread disaster: they'll get many customers spread in a certain area, almost all at the same time. They apparently works well. Few years after quality issues, leaks etc appear. In the meantime that said enterprise have closed, reopening with a slightly different selection of peoples and a different name. How a license system can avoid such events (common here, so to speak)?
If individuals are operating with fake names, proxy workers, ect, there is very little that can be done besides track down and arrest the individuals.
What I miss is how such license scheme may be a guarantee against scammers. USA constructions have a very bad quality reputation in UE, laying on par with China, mostly due to the choice to be cheap and quick instead of strong and durable, but a license give no guarantee about how a company really operate. Normally license are obtained after a small bureaucratic procedure who formally give and ensure proper training and often just ensure some friends of friends milking a bit of money in useless and crappy training curses, even if that's not the case in the USA even a well trained professional can choose on purpose to work well or not. So where is the protection?
There is plenty of work to be done here so we'd appreciate help from other states... but you will need to get licensed in order to prove that you can do the work that will stand up to future storms.
If you require the out-of-state workers to actually get licensed in Florida I think that would likely limit the number of out-of-state workers too much. I doubt many out-of-state roofers would bother with the time and money to maintain Florida licenses that they are only going to use on those occasions of a temporary spike in demand due to Florida natural disasters.
> https://floridapolitics.com/archives/562882-florida-sheriff-...
I live in FL, and I agree. No license in the state means working under a licensed contractor as a sub-contractor.
Ignorance of any law, in any jurisdiction is no excuse for violatinig the law; period.
Fly by night roofers post hurricane are a legit concern. The risk of a complete failure are low, but I have seen poor jobs where a substantial part of the shingles and decking has to be removed and replaced.
A possible solution is reciprocal licensing with a supplement demonstrating knowledge and best practices for wind mitigation and hurricane code, as well as a robust bond for failure to complete work to professional standards.
(Not saying that he would do such a bad job necessarily; just addressing parent's argument that since the roof is demolished you can't do worse than that)
I feel the DBPR made the right call here. An out of state contractor has no business repairing roofs if they are unfamiliar with our building codes.
A C&D will not get anyone's attention, outside of the recipient.
Someone being charged with a felony carrying up to 5 years in jail, will hopefully deter some of the con artists from coming in after a storm. The hordes of "helpers" that come into the state after a storm is ridiculously large. Any deterrence is a good thing.
I read that: "Part of this initiative was based on the Miami-Dade County Code, which has some of the strictest wind uplift requirements in the country, currently 185 mph for High Velocity Hurricane Zones."
That's a category 5 hurricane (and would probably be a 6 if the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale had a 6): https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php
This same family member's last house, built in the early '50s, was literally torn to pieces in Hurricane Irma, 2017. The roof ended up in the neighbor's yard about 100ft away. Wild stuff.
Also there is a great risk of hurricane unproofed homes smashing into your hurricane proof house.
- liability coverage
- not a con artist
- work meets code
Reasons it's bad
- protectionism
"Per the article, "It takes four years to get licensed for a variety of residential and commercial construction work in Florida, according to data collected by the Institute for Justice."
This should be a simple knowledge test, and perhaps an inspection of their work product.
In a developed country like Austria this means taking at least three years of education and passing an exam in front of representatives of the chamber of commerce. It's nowhere simple in order to keep the scammers out.
There should always be an option to test out of it if you can demonstrate acceptable knowledge and work product.
I care about their Baseline knowledge and the quality of their work. The time and ability to pay for classes demonstrates neither
Here are the license requirements:
1. Four years work experience or equivalent in the particular field you are trying to get licensed in. Some of the work experience can be replaced with college classes from an accredited program.
2. Passing an exam (or 2 exams for a few specialities). To give an idea of what such exams are like, here are descriptions of the exams you have to pass fir a gypsum drywall contractor license.
2A. Gypsum drywall trade knowledge exam. 5 hours, 80 questions, open book covering topics such as gypsum and gypsum wallboard installations, taping and texturing, metal stud walls and ceiling grid systems, and special applications. More details on what is covered here [1].
2B. Business and finance exam. 6.5 hours, 120 questions, open book covering topics such as establishing a contracting business, managing administrative duties, managing trade operations, accounting stuff, managing human resources, and complying with regulations. Here's more detail [2].
[1] http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/servop/testing/document...
[2] http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/servop/testing/document...
Many professions require audits, reviews, professional development and examples or tests etc etc in order to keep registration.
I now always get permits on the work for this reason even though it easily doubles the amount of time for the work to get done (because e.g. you need to wait, sometimes many days, for an inspector to show up before drywalling over electrical or plumbing work).
- missing liability insurance
- scamming people
- work that doesn't meet code
What gets prosecuted:
- work that's done without necessary license