Vermont's contractor registry stops at four units
Vermont's contractor registry stops at four units
2026-09-19 · Vermont · Compliance
Vermont's Attorney General is enforcing the residential contractor registry, and the registry is the closest thing a Vermont association has to a free, state-maintained check on who it hires. It does not cover every building.
On May 15, 2026, the Attorney General's office announced enforcement actions against residential contractors for failing to register under 26 V.S.A. ch. 106 — a cease-and-desist letter and a $5,000 fine paid in one matter, and a default order with a $500 fine in another, against a contractor who remained unregistered while continuing to hold himself out as one.1
What the law requires
Since 2023, anyone contracting with a homeowner for residential construction over $10,000 must register with the Secretary of State's Office of Professional Regulation, use a written contract, and carry insurance. Registration is $75 for an individual and $250 for a business, renewed biennially by March 31 of odd-numbered years.
The definition that limits it
“Residential construction” reaches “a residential dwelling unit, or a building or premises with four or fewer residential dwelling units.”
So work on a Vermont townhouse association's individual units, or on its small buildings, sits inside the registry. Work on a five-unit or larger condominium building is likely outside it.
What this means for a board about to sign
If your buildings are four units or fewer: check the register before you contract. It is free, it is maintained by the state, and a contractor who is not on it while working above the threshold is in violation — which is both a warning sign and, if things go wrong, a fact the Attorney General's office has shown it will act on.
If your buildings are larger: the registry will not help, and the association carries the whole diligence burden itself. There is no Vermont licensing scheme for the trades doing common-element work on a large condominium, and no Vermont licensing scheme for the manager procuring it — Title 26 has no chapter for community association managers or property managers.
Where the association can complain
The Attorney General's Consumer Assistance Program is a mediation desk, and it is the one place a Vermont association can take a contractor dispute without filing suit. In 2025 it handled 7,607 inquiries, mediated 1,126 complaints, resolved 587, and recovered $1,448,298 for consumers.2
Home improvement has been a top-three Vermont complaint category for four consecutive years, and the programme now has a dedicated home improvement specialist — a position the legislature created in 2024, credited with more than $400,000 in savings and recoveries in 2025 alone.
It is not a regulator. Its own description says the process “is not a formal legal process, and we cannot guarantee a response or resolution.”
What a Vermont board is required to do about contracts
27A V.S.A. § 3-102(a)(3) lets an association “hire and discharge managing agents and other employees, agents, and independent contractors” — with no qualification requirement attached anywhere in the title.
The constraint is elsewhere, and it is a records constraint. Section 3-118(a) requires the association to retain its accounting records and its current contracts, and to make them available to a unit owner or the owner's authorised agent “during reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time and location” on “five days' notice in a record reasonably identifying the specific records” requested.
Section 3-118(c) lets the association withhold contracts “currently being negotiated”. A signed contract is not a negotiation.
And the board's standard of care
27A V.S.A. § 3-103 holds declarant-appointed officers and board members to “the degree of care and loyalty required of a trustee”, and owner-elected members to the corporate director standard under Title 11B, “regardless of the form in which the association is organized”, together with that title's conflict-of-interest rules.
Vermont courts give boards real deference on procurement decisions — a Washington Unit judge applied the business judgment rule to a board's choice of snowplow contractor, citing Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp. That deference protects a decision made in good faith within the board's authority. It is not a defence to not having looked.
What to watch next
The nearest thing to contractor-fraud legislation in the biennium was S.183, on home improvement and land improvement fraud. It passed both chambers and was vetoed on April 22, 2026. No override was attempted.
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