Sacramento, Calif. (April 9, 2021) - As of July 1, 2020, "[e]very person who is an officer, member, responsible manager, or director of a corporation or limited liability company seeking licensure under this chapter shall be listed on the application as a member of the personnel of record," and they must match those officers listed on California Secretary of State's (SOS) records. (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 7065 (b)(1)). This is a deviation from the Contractors State License Board's (CSLB) past practice of requiring foreign corporations to associate as personnel of record only their president, in contrast to requiring domestic corporations to associate their president, secretary, and treasurer.
Beware that the CSLB may discover that the licensee's personnel of record are incomplete or incorrect when reviewing a license renewal application, because it will compare the SOS's records to the license renewal application. A license renewal application requires the licensee to list its qualifier and personnel of record. If the SOS and CSLB records do not match, this could delay approval of the license renewal application until the missing personnel are added and fingerprinted.
Corporate officers can be changed on a corporate license at any time. Adding or removing a corporate officer that is not a "qualifier" for the license, i.e., a responsible managing employee (RME) or responsible managing officer (RMO), does not affect the status of the license. If a corporate officer leaves the company, a "Disassociation Request" is to be completed and sent to the CSLB. If this form is not received within 90 days of the effective date of the disassociation, the date the notice is received by CSLB will be used as the disassociation date.
If the licensee's personnel of record are incomplete or incorrect, the licensee should complete and send to the CSLB an "Application to Add New Personnel to Existing Corporate or Limited Liability Company License," correcting its personnel of record on the CSLB's records. Each officer must be fingerprinted, unless their fingerprints are already on file with the CLSB, before the application will be approved. The new officers will be associated effective on the date that the application is determined to be acceptable and all requirements are met.
Upon submission of the application, each individual listed will be sent instructions on the process for obtaining and submitting fingerprints and a "Request for Live Scan Service" form. If an individual does not live in California and does not plan to come to California during the application process, they may be fingerprinted using hard copy fingerprint cards. For out-of-state residents, the hard copy cards will automatically be generated and sent after the application has been posted. However, beware that the processing time required for hard copy fingerprint cards is substantially longer than Live Scan fingerprinting and can take three to six months or longer.
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