AZ LLC, Personnel and Owner Listing

One way good as another? Not in contractor licensing! Another contractor also sends me an ‘SOS’, then we do a ‘double take’ on LLC licenses in Arizona…

Q: We have a new entity being set up for the purposes of obtaining a Contractor’s License, I will be the Qualifier as I have been previously licensed. I’m telling the legal team that it is permissible to have Owners who are not associated with the Contractor’s License in any way. The attorneys are claiming all Owners of the entity need to be disclosed with the Secretary of State, and in turn be included on the license application. Can you enlighten us as to the correct procedure?

A: You are both correct in a way. You are permitted to have Owners who are not associated with the Contractor’s License.  However, if you choose to disclose/list those Owners with the Secretary of State, they also must be listed on the Contractor’s License. Either way is acceptable. 

Q: I have been reading your articles and have read several times about the need to have the Personnel listed with the Secretary of State (SOS) match what the CSLB has in their records. We currently have three Vice President’s (VP) and are adding one more to the list. We have all our current VP’s listed on our CSLB license but do not have them on our Secretary of State records. Is there a second form we should be filling out to add VP’s to the SOS records?

A: Vice Presidents are not required to be listed with the Secretary of State, so it is acceptable to have those individuals reflected on your license without having them listed with the SOS.

Q: I have a question regarding Arizona Contractor’s Licensing. We are currently looking into acquiring a company which operates in Arizona under two different Limited Liability Company, or LLC’s, with a single license holder. They do Plumbing and HVAC work. We would like to roll both entities into one LLC, but we weren’t sure if the same entity can be licensed with different dba’s?

A: An LLC can operate under the same entity, under two different license numbers, each with their own ‘doing business as’(dba), as long as each license is holding a different classification. So, using the classifications you mentioned, it could be something like this for example: License #1234 belongs to ABC LLC dba ABC Plumbing, and it holds a plumbing license. License #5678 belongs to ABC LLC dba ABC Heating and Air. Two licenses, separate numbers, separate classifications, but they belong to the same entity and utilize the same qualifier. One entity cannot operate under two different dba’s in AZ with the same classification attached to each.