Running the Business · Part 3

The home improvement contract (B&P 7159): every required element, the exact notices, and the three-day right to cancel

Every residential plumbing job over $500 is a home improvement contract under Business and Professions Code section 7159, and the section does not merely require a contract; it dictates what the contract says, in what typeface, under which headings, with which statutory notices attached, and what the customer must be handed before the first tool comes off the truck. Missing any of it is cause for discipline, and the deposit and progress-payment rules inside it are misdemeanors. This lesson walks the section top to bottom, explains what each piece is for, and shows why the three-day right to cancel decides when you may start work. The template that follows it is the form itself, with every notice verbatim.