All home improvement contractors in Nassau County need to be licensed to perform the following services, among others:

• air conditioning & heating systems
• carpentry work
• ceramic tile & marble installers
• cesspool builders & cleaners
• chimney/fireplace builders, repairs, cleaners
• doors, windows, awnings
• dry wall contractors
• fences and railings
• fire escape stairs & ladders
• floor installation & refinishing (including sub-floors)
• garage builders
• general contractors
• insulation contractors
• lawn irrigation contractors
• masonry work
• painting contractors
• paving and driveway seal coating
• power washers & sandblasters
• reglazing/porcelain refinishing
• retaining wall contractors
• roofing contractors
• sewer cleaners
• siding installation
• swimming pool (building, installing and maintenance)
• tree surgery
• vacuum cleaner central systems
• waterproofing
• well drilling

Check your contractor's licensing & open complaints by contacting Office of Consumer Affairs at (516) 571-3871.  To view the Nassau County Local Law, click here. Remember  if your contractor is unlicensed, they cannot enforce your home improvement contract against you & they are subject to arrest & prosecution. 

All home improvement contractors in Suffolk County need to be licensed to perform the following services, among others:

Arborists	Awnings
Basements	Cabinet Makers
Carpentry	Driveways
Dormers	Extensions
Excavating	Flag Poles
Exterminating	Fumigation
Flooring	Insulation
Garages	Landscapers
Kitchens	Painting
Masonry	Roofing
Railings	Siding
Storms & Screens	Tree services
Swimming Pools	Tennis Courts
Termite Control	Tile Installers
Weatherproofing	Waterproofing

Check your contractor's licensing & open complaints by contacting Office of Consumer Affairs at (631) 853-4600. There are more than 12,000 licensed vendors, so you can certainly find one for your job. Remember, if your contractor is unlicensed, they cannot enforce your home improvement contract against you & they are subject to arrest & prosecution.

If you had damage in the storm & plan to hire a contractor in New York, we will be providing you with some tips & laws to get you on your way.

Lets start with General Business Law 771, which contains the requirements for home improvement contracts as follows:

Commercial landlords secure your property as soon as the storm passes. While a property owner is not liable for injuries occurring on their premises during a storm in progress, the landlord only has an objective reasonable time to remedy the situation or face liability thereafter.

Back on August 28, 2011 I blogged about homeowners insurance in the wake of Hurricane Irene. Click here to read that article as its still applicable.

TIP: If you have an opportunity, take your cell phone out & take pictures of your home before damage occurs, both inside and out. Therefore, if you do have coverage, you can prove the damage.

More legal tips will be posted throughout the day, so stay tuned.

• If a property owner has no knowledge that a tree is decaying or unsafe and it simply falls from wind or storm onto his neighbors’ property, he has no liability & the neighbor where it fell is responsible for removal for the portion on his property.
• If a property owner knows of a tree's dangerous condition; that the tree is unsound and/or decaying, regardless if wind contributes to its fall onto his neighbors' property, he is liable. 

• If so, removal is charged to the property owner in which it lies after it falls. 
• If not, removal & liability for damage is charged to the property owner from which it fell.

At our continuing education class on Thursday of last week, To be Green or Not to be Green, a student inquired about historic tankless water heaters v. their modern efficient & green cousins that are now promoted by the energy efficiency movement. While I was sure about the effect of the difference, that the modern electric tankless models are quite more efficient, I was not sure about the specifics. So I researched until I found this article, which I think is quite informative. Click here to learn more.

Basically, the historic version included boiler-integrated tankless coils, which uses a home's space heating system to heat water as explained here whereas the modern cousin is an on-demand tankless model that only provides water when needed as explained here.

As reported on Business Insider, Bal Harbour Shops in Miami is #1.

There appears to be a lot of confusion about a Broker's Agent among real estate agents.

The license law defines such an agent at RPL 443(1)(k) as follows:

“Broker’s agent” means an agent that cooperates or is engaged by a listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent (but does not work for the same firm as the listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent) to assist the listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent in locating a property to sell, buy or lease respectively, for the listing agent’s seller or landlord, the buyer agent’s buyer or the tenant’s agent tenant. The broker’s agent does not have a direct relationship with the seller, buyer, landlord or tenant and the seller, buyer, landlord or tenant can not provide instructions or direction directly to the broker’s agent. Therefore, the seller, buyer, landlord or tenant do not have vicarious liability for the acts of the broker’s agent. The listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent do provide direction and instruction to the broker’s agent and therefore the listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent will have liability for the broker’s agent.

Interestingly, a broker's agent should not have a client, but only a customer as the term customer is commonly utilized in the industry, albeit not defined by License Law.

The license law defines a client as follows:

Client - The one by whom a broker is employed.

As a result, the definition of Broker's Agent does not permit for a client because it states that a broker's agent is "engaged by" (otherwise known as employed) the "listing agent, buyer’s agent or tenant’s agent" and not by a vendor or vendee. Yes, technically the agent who employs is the client, but DOS Opinions clearly state that a real estate agent needn't make a formal disclosure by way of the form to another real estate agent working on the same matter. Therefore, the agency disclosure form is only necessary to customers (those who the broker's agent is attempting to procure for the deal).

Moreover, the definition of Broker's Agent mentions "vicarious liability", but agents misinterpret this to be their liability and specifically, their insulation from liability. It is not. Instead its the "seller, buyer, landlord or tenant"('s) liability is at issue, not the real estate agents. To be clear, if you are a broker's agent, you can be liable for your wrongs. If you are a seller's agent or buyer's agent who engages a broker's agent, you can be liable for their acts. All the statute states is that a client who has a broker's agent working on their matter in addition to their own real estate agent is not liable for that broker's agent's misconduct.

MHA recently posted their performance report through August 2012. This is the Federal Program that oversees mortgage modifications, short sales, and deeds in lieu of foreclosure. The most interesting statistic was that "81% of eligible non-GSE borrowers entering HAMP in August have received some form of principal reduction with their modification".

To read the report, click here.