Unlicensed contractors get a pass

The ordinance allowing Orange County to issue citations against unlicensed contractors has a major loophole, according to a comptroller’s audit, something that county leaders say needs fixing.

The Orange County Consumer Fraud Unit has no jurisdiction to issue citations in cities, leaving residents there with no recourse against unlicensed contractors other than outright criminal prosecution, which has a much higher standard.

“[The] portions of Orange County within cities have little or no protection against unlicensed contractors,” said Phil Diamond, Orange County comptroller. “That’s something bad for the public whether you’re inside the borders of cities or outside the borders of cities.”

Unfortunately, he said, many cities still refer complaints in their cities to the county anyway.

Now, Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs wants the county to work with cities and towns to extend the Consumer Fraud Unit’s reach.

“The problem of unlicensed contractors is huge,” Jacobs said, adding she wants a standard, uniform agreement between the county and all 13 municipalities.

Lake County already has similar agreements with most of its municipalities, a spokeswoman said. A Board of Examiners meets there every month to hear cases.

Diamond spoke about the audit, which looked at the Consumer Fraud Unit’s unlicensed contractor program from March 2013 to August 2015, at Tuesday’s Orange County Commission meeting.

The 2013 ordinance allowing civil citations was meant to be “a little extra enforcement” in addition to criminal prosecutions, said Carlos Morales, Consumer Fraud Unit administrator. Fines ranging from $250 to $800 have been issued to contractors working or advertising without being registered or licensed.

“Citations, the beauty of it is, you don’t need a victim,” Morales said. “In order to file a criminal charge from the State Attorney’s Office, you need a victim. You can’t just accuse a person because they posted an advertisement. Citations – all you do is look into a guy posting as a contractor, check his registration with the county or see if he’s licensed with the state, and bada bing, bada boom.”

While the ordinance only allows citations in unincorporated areas, a random sampling of 18 of the 225 investigations of unlicensed contractors during the audit period showed five of the seven resulting citations did not have documentation that the violation occurred in unincorporated Orange County.

Two of the citations, in fact, involved addresses in Winter Garden and Winter Park, outside the unit’s authority.

“When we get a business card, an advertisement on the Internet, a picture we receive, it’s difficult to decide if it’s in unincorporated Orange County,” Morales said. “Anybody who has a cell phone can take a picture, but unless we have a physical address, we’re leery to issue a citation.”

If a complainant just says, “‘Yeah, we saw the guy but he didn’t give his address,’ ” Morales said, an alleged unlicensed contractor has plausible deniability.

The number of citations slowed down considerably as the audit was taking place, Morales said, dropping from 29 in fiscal 2014 to just 15 in 2015 and six in 2016. He said there has been none so far this year.

“We didn’t want lawsuits and liability issues for the county,” Morales said, referring to the possibility of contractors cited for work ultimately found to be outside the unit’s jurisdiction.

Still, he insisted, all cases were investigated, and 63 were referred to the State Attorney’s Office for prosecution over the same period.

“Now, when the wind starts blowing again and the next hurricane comes, we’re going to be up to snuff, ready to go investigate situations,” Morales said.