The North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors

North Carolina’s general contractors are licensed by a nine-member board appointed by the Governor, created by statute in Chapter 87. It issues, renews, restricts, suspends and revokes licenses, and it hears sworn complaints against licensees. One power it does not have is the one most often assumed: it has no specific authority to impose civil fines or penalties.

The board is an independent licensing board, not a division of a larger state department. Several states structure licensing the other way, so that is worth knowing rather than assuming.

Two names, both correct

The statute and the board use different names, which is why searches for either turn up the same body.

Chapter 87 creates “the State Licensing Board for General Contractors” (G.S. 87-2). The board’s own publications call it the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors, abbreviated NCLBGC, and that is the name on its site at nclbgc.org and in the disclaimer at the foot of this page. A third spelling, “the State Licensing Board of General Contractor’s”, appears in G.S. 87-1.1.

None of the three is a different organization. Where a quotation appears on this site it keeps whichever form its own source used.

Who sits on it

G.S. 87-2 sets the composition precisely, and it is more specific than most licensing statutes: “There is created the State Licensing Board for General Contractors consisting of nine members appointed by the Governor for staggered five-year terms. Five of the members shall be general contractors, one member shall be a registered engineer who practices structural engineering, and three shall be public members.”

The five contractor seats are allocated by the kind of work each member does. G.S. 87-2 requires that “one shall have as the larger part of his business the construction of highways; one shall have as the larger part of his business the construction of public utilities; one shall have as the larger part of his business the construction of buildings; and two shall have as a larger part of their businesses the construction of residences, one of whom shall be the holder of an unlimited general contractor’s license.”

The three public seats are a check on the other six. Under the same section they “shall have no ties with the construction industry and shall represent the interests of the public at large” (G.S. 87-2).

Terms are limited and vacancies are filled by the Governor. G.S. 87-2 provides that vacancies “shall be filled by appointment of the Governor for the remainder of the unexpired term”, that the Governor “may remove any member of the Board for misconduct, incompetency, or neglect of duty”, and, in its closing sentence, that “No Board member shall serve more than two complete consecutive terms.”

Where its rules come from

The administrative rules this site cites throughout — the classification scopes at 21 NCAC 12A .0202, the fees at .0304, the financial thresholds at .0204 — exist because the statute grants the board rulemaking power. G.S. 87-4 provides that the board “shall have power to make such bylaws, rules and regulations as it shall deem best, provided the same are not in conflict with the laws of North Carolina.”

The same section sets the board’s officers. Under G.S. 87-4 it organizes “by electing a chairman, a vice-chairman, and a secretary-treasurer, each to serve for one year”, and the secretary-treasurer “need not be a member of the Board”, the board being authorized “to employ a full-time secretary-treasurer, and such other assistants and make such other expenditures as may be necessary to the proper carrying out of the provisions of this Article.”

What it can do to a license

The board’s disciplinary powers sit in G.S. 87-11, and they run to the license rather than to the licensee’s wallet. That section gives it “the power to refuse to issue or renew or revoke, suspend, or restrict a certificate of license or to issue a reprimand or take other disciplinary action if a general contractor licensed under this Article is found guilty of any fraud or deceit in obtaining a license, or gross negligence, incompetency, or misconduct in the practice of his or her profession, or willful violation of any provision of this Article.”

Those same grounds reach a qualifier. G.S. 87-11(a) continues: “The Board shall also have the power to revoke, suspend, or otherwise restrict the ability of any person to act as a qualifying party for a license to practice general contracting, as provided in G.S. 87-10(c)”, where that person committed an act violating the section, and it may take disciplinary action against that person’s own individual license as well. Who may serve in that role is covered at what the Board requires of an applicant.

A revoked license is not necessarily permanent. G.S. 87-11(d) allows the board to reissue one, “Provided, five or more members of the Board vote in favor of such reissuance for reasons the Board may deem sufficient” — five of the nine seats described above.

What it cannot do: fine

Asked directly whether it can impose a fine, the board’s answer is published and unambiguous: “Can the Board impose a fine or a penalty? No, the Board has no specific authority to impose civil fines or penalties.”

That surprises people, because in some states the licensing board is exactly the body that levies fines. In North Carolina its jurisdiction is over the license and the qualifier’s credential. Criminal penalties for unlicensed contracting are imposed by the courts rather than by the board — though the board is not without a remedy there, since G.S. 87-13.1 gives it an injunction and an attorney’s fee. Both are covered at working without a license.

One figure is often mistaken for a fine and is not one. G.S. 87-11(e) entitles the board to recover “its reasonable administrative costs associated with the investigation and prosecution of a violation of this Article or rules or regulations of the Board up to a maximum of five thousand dollars ($5,000)” from a licensee or qualifying party found to have committed fraud or deceit in obtaining a license, gross negligence, incompetency or misconduct, or a willful violation. That is reimbursement of what the investigation cost, not a penalty on top of it, and it is a different provision from the separate $5,000 attorney’s fee available against an unlicensed person under G.S. 87-13.1.

How a complaint reaches it

The route is open to anyone, and the statute sets its form. G.S. 87-11(a1) opens: “Any person may prefer charges of fraud, deceit, negligence, or misconduct against any general contractor licensed under this Article. The charges shall be in writing and sworn to by the complainant and submitted to the Board.”

Two things follow from that sentence. The charges must be sworn and in writing — an informal account is not what the section describes. And the board may decline to hear them: under the same subsection, charges are heard “unless dismissed without hearing by the Board as unfounded or trivial”, with anything that proceeds “heard and determined by the Board in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 150B of the General Statutes”, North Carolina’s administrative procedure act.

The board also keeps a record of what it receives. G.S. 87-11(c) requires it to “establish and maintain a system whereby detailed records are kept regarding complaints against each licensee”, including “the date and nature of each complaint, investigatory action taken by the Board, any findings by the Board, and the disposition of the matter.”

A homeowner whose loss is financial rather than disciplinary may be looking at a different mechanism entirely — see the Homeowners Recovery Fund, which is a fund rather than a complaint.

Dealing with it in practice

Two separate systems carry most of what a contractor needs. Applications and renewals are handled online at NCCLiC; the board’s own notice reads “ATTENTION: License applications are now being handled online at NCCLiC.org.” The public license record is searched separately, through the board’s portal — see checking a license record for what a record shows and what it does not.

What the board asks of an applicant in the first place is at what the Board requires of an applicant, the classification and limitation it issues against are at the classifications and limitations, and the annual cycle it administers is at renewing a license. For the license as a whole, start at the main licensing guide.

North Carolina licenses construction work through several boards under the same chapter, constituted differently. The electrical board has seven members of whom only five are appointed by the Governor — see the electrical board. The plumbing, heating and fire sprinkler board has seven, with a seat reserved for air conditioning — see the plumbing and heating board.

This site is not affiliated with the board and cannot act for you with it. Contact details are published on the board’s own site.