You can get money from the Arizona Register of Contractors (ROC) in Arizona through their recovery fund. It’s a mini insurance policy for flakey contractors. In Ramsey v. Arizona Registrar of Contractors a homeowner sought recovery for subpar contracting. The ROC intervened and moved to dismiss the case against the Recovery Fund. It said, the homeowner had suffered no “actual damages” because the amount owed to complete the home was less than the amount owed to the contractor. The trial court ordered the ROC to pay the homeowner from the Fund. The appeals court remanded, agreeing with the ROC’s interpretation of “actual damages” as: (1) the reasonable cost of completing the contract and repairing the contractor’s defective performance; minus (2) the remaining unpaid contract price.

The appeals court reasoned that ROC’s interpretation restored claimants against the Fund to the same position they would have been in had the contract been performed by excluding contractor expenses that had never been paid.

Regarding the logic of the trial court, the appeals court said the statute governing payment from the fund requires only “testimony, documentary evidence, or other proof . . . as to those portions of the application to which the ROC has objected,” rather than a blanket statement of facts pursuant to Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(3).

Further, the appeals court held that the trial court was not required to hold a hearing prior to directing payment from the Fund, where the issue was legal and had been briefed by the lawyers.

At the Law Firm of William A. Miller, we have handled numerous contractor complaints over the years. The ROC waters are very rough and you should contact a lawyer before ‘jumping in’. Call Bill at 602-319-6899 to discuss.

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