A home improvement company was ordered to stop conducting business in Howard County after a Clarksville resident said the Anne Arundel company never finished a costly house addition for which it received payment.
County Executive Ken Ulman this week issued a cease and desist order to the M&A Construction Co. of Odenton, owned by James Martz III, calling unlicensed contractors a “recipe for disaster.”
“This is done whenever we find businesses that aren’t licensed and when they aren’t willing to work with us to get a proper license and make restitution to the consumer,” said Rebecca Bowman, administrator of the county’s Office of Consumer Affairs.
The incident was reported to the county in April, but several months passed before the order was served to the company, she said.
County officials didn’t provide the name of the victim who filed the complaint, the first against this company.
The order bans the company from:
• Soliciting home improvement work;
• Signing new home improvement contracts;
• Performing any home improvement work until it has obtained the proper home improvement contractor’s license and provided the Office of Consumer Affairs with proof of the licensure.
Violations could result in fines of $500.
“My goal is to get him out of business until he gets his act together,” Bowman said.
She said M&A Construction performed about 75 percent of the work on the addition but didn’t finish the project.
The estimated cost of the work was more than $126,500, and the homeowner paid M&A more than $123,000, Bowman said.
Under the state home improvement law, consumers do not have to pay more than one-third of the contract cost for the construction up front.
“It’s very important that consumers know that the company has a license and that they don’t have to pay all the money up front,” she said.
The line for a listed telephone number for the company was disconnected Wednesday.
A check on the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation confirmed that M&A Construction doesn’t have a license for home improvement.
WEB EXTRA
Consumers may check whether their contractor is licensed by calling the Maryland Home Improvement Commission, a branch of the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, at 410-230-6309 or 888-218-5925. Also check dllr.state.md.us/license/occprof/homeim.html
