Officials: Vermont home-contractor registry leaves fraud gap under $10,000

Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert told the Vermont House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure on April 23 that the state's registry of home contractors provides new consumer protections but leaves a significant unregulated space for fraud on projects under $10,000.

Hibbert, who previously led the Office of Professional Regulation and directed the contractor registry's legislative path, said the Office filed a regulatory-status report in September 2024 required by Act 182 (2022). "We found three things," she said: "homeowners would benefit from an additional protection from consumer fraud; there's no assurance of work quality or building safety standards for single-family homeowners; and the voluntary certifications we plan to build won't resolve problems with not having quality-of-work oversight."

The finding matters because the registry triggers on a single job worth more than $10,000 and that threshold creates an unregulated gap, Hibbert said. "A homeowner who contracts for a major improvement on her home for $8,000 can be defrauded," she warned, adding that OPR's original sunrise recommendation in 2018 proposed a $1,500 threshold.

Background and enforcement data

Hibbert summarized the program's path: OPR's sunrise review began in 2018, the Legislature enacted the registry as Act 182 in 2022, and the office began receiving applications in December 2022. Enforcement authority became effective in April 2024. "We have approximately 1,200 licensees now," Hibbert said. "We've received 82 complaints in total. Sixty-three of them were against unregistered contractors." She said 19 complaints were against registered contractors, four enforcement actions have been opened (two charged; one where a summary-suspension request was denied; and one pre-denial), 15 cases are pending review, and 39 complaints were screened out, mostly as quality-of-work disputes rather than fraud.

Scope limits and quality-of-work

Hibbert emphasized that OPR does not have a general mandate to judge workmanship and that most screened-out complaints were related to quality or incomplete work rather than alleged fraud. "So unless it was fraud ... we excluded quality of work," she said, explaining that proving fraud requires evidence of a deliberate misrepresentation (for example, a promised vapor barrier not installed), while poor workmanship alone is outside OPR's current regulatory standard.

Insurance, certification and building standards

The registry requires a written contract and liability insurance for jobs above the trigger. Hibbert and other speakers said the statutory insurance trigger is set at $1,000,000 of coverage; premiums at passage were reported as roughly $700'$1,000 a year. OPR intends to develop voluntary certifications tied to the Residential Building Energy Standards (RBES) and building-science topics and is working with Efficiency Vermont and Energy Futures Group on an exam pathway funded in part by a federal energy grant. Hibbert said the RBES certification will require an exam because the certification must demonstrate qualification.

Hibbert repeatedly noted a structural challenge: Vermont has statewide energy codes but lacks a statewide building code for single-family homes. "For single-family homes, Vermont actually does not have a building code; it has only an energy code," she said. That absence complicates any effort to investigate and adjudicate quality-of-work claims and narrows what OPR can require or enforce.

Policy trade-offs and H.181

Committee members raised H.181, a bill that would lower the registry threshold (the text discussed during the hearing proposes $2,000). Hibbert said lowering the trigger "academically, yes" would likely reduce the unregulated space, but politically and logistically it is fraught: the registry was the product of years of compromise and a veto override in 2022. "If you lower the threshold, you also increase enforcement costs and may reduce compliance if the entry barriers become too high," she told legislators.

Requests and next steps

Hibbert told the committee she will provide follow-up data requested by members, including complaint dollar amounts and how many complaints involved weatherization work. She offered to submit the September 2024 regulatory-status report and the 2018 sunrise report as written testimony and to return as a witness if the committee requests it.

The committee did not take formal votes during the session. Members continued the policy discussion about whether to pair any threshold change with adjustments to the insurance trigger, certification pathways, or placement of some functions within the Department of Fire Safety so technical standards and investigations could be better enforced.