Joint Ventures, Family Waiver for Corporate Licensees, Parent Company Changes & Partnerships

We help ‘unite’ a contractor’s venture, take time to help a son discover a possible way to follow his father’s footsteps and share a lesson ‘re-uniting’ corporate ‘partners’ on a license renewal…

Q: Can a Joint Venture be one of the entities that makes up another Joint Venture?

A:  According to B&P Code 7029, “a joint venture license is a license issued to any combination of individuals, corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, or other joint ventures, each of which holds a current, active license in good standing.”

Q:  My Dad is the RMO (Responsible Managing Officer) for a company he started with his business Partner over 20 years ago.  They both plan on retiring soon and they want my younger Brother and I to take over the business (his Partner doesn’t have any kids).  I read in one of your articles that one of us can replace our Father on the license as an RMO without having to take the tests because we are family.  Is this still applicable?

A:  Possibly.  The B&P Code Section 7065.1(b) “family waiver” you are referring to only allows for a Sole Proprietorlicense to be transferred to a family member for the purpose of continuing the family business.  However, since your Dad and his Partner’s license is a corporate license, it belongs to the corporation, so the family waiver does not apply.  However, if either you or your brother has worked for the company in a supervisory capacity for at least five out of the last seven years, you can request to Waive the Exams based on B&P Code Section 7065.1(c).  Keep in mind that a Waiver request is only a request, and is not guaranteed.  Please contact our office if you’d like assistance with this.

Q:  Hi, hope all is well.  Quick question for you: As you know, we have a Class “B” license in the name of our Corporation.  Our Corporation is a 100% wholly owned subsidiary of another Corporation.  If the Parent company is sold to another company (but it continues to be the 100% owner of licensed entity), is there anything we had to do in terms of the license?

A: Thanks, got it! While you should notify the CSLB of any changes to your license within 90 days, I don’t believe there would be any reason to notify the CSLB of such a transfer as you’ve described it.

Q:  We have a Partnership license which is made up of two Corporations.  We received our renewal application and we are unsure as to who should sign it since it only lists the two entities and no individual’s names.  Can you help?

A:  When you originally obtained the license, you would have had individuals sign the application on behalf of each entity.  Assuming you have not made any changes to the license since then, you will need to have each of those individualssign the renewal on behalf of each entity in order to renew.