Home improvement line

Definition

Where washing stops and home improvement starts, which is what turns the whole rulebook on.

Why It Matters

Three of the strictest home improvement statutes define the trade with verbs that alter a structure, and none of them reaches cleaning, so washing alone triggers no registration, no statutory contract, and no guaranty fund payment. The moment the same crew seals a deck, paints, or treats a roof, all of it switches on: in Massachusetts that means a registration certificate the statute says is not transferable, a fund payment scaled by headcount from one hundred dollars under four employees to five hundred above thirty, and a named individual personally on the hook alongside the company. Ask exactly which services the crews sold last year, because the answer decides which business is being bought.