How to Choose a Contractor in Los Angeles

By Priya Anand

Hiring a contractor in Los Angeles comes down to five checks, in order: verify the license on the CSLB’s Check a License tool, confirm the bond and workers’ comp behind it, get three comparable line-item bids, vet LA-specific experience through the city’s own permit records, and never pay a deposit over $1,000. That last one is not advice. It is California law: the down payment on a home improvement contract is capped at $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract price, whichever is less. Anyone who asks for more has just failed the interview. Here is the full protocol, every rule sourced to the agency that enforces it.

Start with the license, because everything else depends on it

Every contractor working a job worth $1,000 or more in California must hold an active license from the Contractors State License Board, and you can verify any license in under a minute at cslb.ca.gov. Search by license number or business name. The record shows the license status, the classifications held, the bond on file, workers’ comp status, and any disclosed complaints. Match the name on the license to the name on the contract and the name on the truck. If those three names disagree, stop.

For a remodel, the classification you want is the Class B General Building license. The CSLB defines a Class B contractor as one whose work involves at least two unrelated building trades or crafts, which is exactly what a kitchen or whole-home project is: framing, plumbing, electrical, finish work, all coordinated under one contract. A painter with a C-33 license cannot legally take your gut renovation, no matter how good the referral.

Behind every active license sits a $25,000 contractor bond, required before the CSLB will issue or renew a license. The bond is not insurance for your whole project, but it is a recovery fund if the contractor violates license law, and its presence on the record tells you the license is genuinely active. Workers’ compensation matters just as much. Any contractor with employees must carry it, and under Senate Bill 216 the requirement extends to every licensed contractor, employees or not, with full universal coverage phased in by January 1, 2028. Ask for the certificate anyway. If an uninsured worker gets hurt on your property, the claim can land on you.

California caps the deposit, and the law is on your side

The legal down payment on a California home improvement contract is the lesser of 10 percent of the contract price or $1,000, a rule the CSLB states in plain language. On a $150,000 remodel, the maximum legal deposit is $1,000. Not $15,000. Contractors who know the law expect this; contractors who push back on it are telling you how the rest of the project will go.

The same rules govern everything after the deposit. The contract must include a detailed written payment schedule, and payments cannot exceed the value of the work performed or materials delivered. In practice that means you pay for the rough plumbing after the rough plumbing exists, not before. A well-run job invoices against milestones you can walk over and inspect: demo complete, rough-in passed inspection, drywall hung, finals.

You also have a cooling-off period. For contracts signed anywhere other than the contractor’s place of business, California gives you a three-business-day right to cancel, extended to five business days for homeowners 65 and older. After a declared disaster, repair contracts carry a seven-business-day cancellation window under Civil Code section 1689.7. The contract itself must disclose these rights. One that does not is already out of compliance.

Get three bids that can actually be compared

Three bids is the minimum, but only if all three price the same scope. Hand each contractor an identical written scope: the plans if you have them, the fixture and finish schedule, the appliance list, the same square footage and the same level of detail. Bids built on three different mental pictures of the project tell you nothing except who guessed lowest. Our realistic guide to remodeling in Los Angeles covers what those numbers should look like by project type.

Insist on line items. A single number for “bathroom remodel, $48,000” hides everything you need to negotiate and everything that will later become a change order. You want demolition, plumbing, electrical, tile labor, tile material, fixtures, glass, paint, and permit costs each on their own line. For a sense of where each line should land, see what a bathroom renovation actually costs in Los Angeles.

Pay attention to allowances, the placeholder budgets for items not yet selected. An allowance of $1,200 for slab countertops is not a price, it is a trap: the real stone will cost three times that, and the difference arrives as a change order mid-project. A bid with realistic allowances will read higher than a bid with fantasy ones, and the higher bid is often the honest one. The cheapest of three comparable bids deserves scrutiny, not celebration. Ask what the other two saw that this one missed.

The LA layer: hillsides, LADBS, and who pulls the permit

In Los Angeles, the contractor’s city-specific track record matters as much as the license, and you can check it yourself. LADBS makes permit and building records searchable online by address, so ask for the addresses of the contractor’s last three completed city jobs and look them up. You are checking that permits were pulled, inspections happened, and the jobs were finaled. A contractor who hesitates to give addresses has answered the question.

If your house is in the hills, hillside experience is non-negotiable. Hillside projects in this city involve geology and soils reports, slope-specific structural review, and the daily logistics of staging materials on a street with no flat parking. A contractor who has only worked the flats will misprice all of it. The same goes for seismic work: pre-1978 soft-story buildings fall under the city’s mandatory retrofit ordinance, and foundation bolting on older single-family homes is specialty work, not a framing crew’s side task.

One rule with no exceptions: the contractor pulls the permit, not you. A contractor who asks you to pull an owner-builder permit is asking you to assume legal responsibility for the job site, the workers, and the work itself, while quietly signaling that something about their license or insurance cannot survive city paperwork. The permit fee on most remodels is a small fraction of the budget. Paying it under the contractor’s license is what makes the contractor accountable to LADBS for the result. If a designer is running the project, they will expect this arrangement too; the firms in our survey of the interior designers defining Los Angeles right now work with licensed, permit-pulling contractors as a baseline.

Red flags that should end the conversation

Some warning signs are not negotiating points. They are exits. Walk away, politely and immediately, from any of these:

• No license, or a borrowed one. “I work under my buddy’s license” is unlicensed contracting. So is a license number that comes back suspended, expired, or registered to a different business name on the CSLB lookup.
• A deposit over $1,000, or a push for cash. Both violate the structure California built to protect you, and both remove your leverage on day one.
• “We don’t really need a permit for this.” Unpermitted work surfaces at resale, voids insurance claims, and can end with the city ordering finished walls opened. The discount is never worth it.
• No written contract, or a one-page contract for a six-figure job. California requires home improvement contracts in writing, with scope, schedule, and cancellation rights spelled out.
• Pressure to sign today. A real contractor’s calendar does not expire at sunset. Manufactured urgency is a sales tactic, and the three-day cancellation right exists precisely because it works.
• No local references, no permit trail. If LADBS records show nothing under the contractor’s license, the LA experience on the website is a story.

Questions readers ask

How do I verify a contractor’s license in California?

Use the CSLB’s free Check a License tool at cslb.ca.gov. Search by license number or business name and confirm the license is active, the classification fits your project, the bond is on file, and the business name matches your contract. Check it again before signing, since licenses can lapse between first meeting and final paperwork.

What is the maximum down payment a contractor can ask for in California?

The lesser of 10 percent of the contract price or $1,000, per the CSLB’s home improvement contract rules. The cap applies to home improvement and swimming pool contracts regardless of project size, so a $200,000 remodel still carries a $1,000 maximum deposit. Progress payments after that cannot exceed the value of work actually performed.

Can I cancel a contract after signing it?

Usually yes, within three business days, if the contract was signed anywhere other than the contractor’s place of business. Homeowners 65 and older get five business days, and disaster-repair contracts carry seven. Cancel in writing, delivered or postmarked before the deadline, and keep a copy.

Should the contractor or the homeowner pull the permit in Los Angeles?

The contractor, always. When the contractor pulls the permit under their own license, they carry legal responsibility for code compliance and inspections. An owner-builder permit shifts that liability to you and is a common workaround for contractors whose license or insurance cannot stand up to LADBS scrutiny. Treat the request as a red flag.