The $7,500 Line in Louisiana Mold Law

Below $7,500 in labor and materials, no. R.S. 37:2150.1(11) defines a mold remediation contractor as someone whose mold work exceeds seven thousand five hundred dollars, so under that figure the person doing your work is not the regulated person, and neither the written report duty nor the ban on one firm doing both the assessment and the removal reaches them. The small job, which is the job most homeowners have, is the unregulated one.

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Where R.S. 37:2150.1(11) draws the line, in its own words

The definition is the whole of it. A mold remediation contractor means any person who engages in removal, cleaning, sanitizing, demolition, or other treatment, including preventative activities, of mold or mold-contaminated matter that was not purposely grown at that location and where the costs for such labor and materials exceed seven thousand five hundred dollars. R.S. 37:2150.1(4)(a)(iv) lists the same figure as the license trigger: any mold remediation where the entire cost exceeds seven thousand five hundred dollars. The board's own classification page puts it in one sentence, a license is required when the value exceeds $7,500. Notice what that structure does. It does not regulate the trade, it regulates a price band. Everything the statute goes on to require is attached to a number on an invoice rather than to the work itself.

What you lose below the line, and it is more than the license

The duties in R.S. 37:2158(A)(19) are duties of a mold remediation contractor, which the definition has just told you means somebody over the threshold. So under $7,500 there is no written report duty, no bar on rendering false, deceptive, misleading or unfounded opinions as a licensing violation, no bar on one company performing both the assessment and the remediation on the same property, and no bar on one owner holding an interest in both entities. Nothing about the work is different. A $6,000 contract on a wall cavity involves the same judgment about how much has to come out as an $8,000 one, and the same conflict of interest arises when the person forming that judgment is the person paid to act on it. It is simply that below the line, the protections most people assume apply to a trade are attached to nobody.

Two invoices for one job is the tell, and the statute names it

R.S. 37:2158(B)(1) provides that in determining the value of a project, any division of a contract or scope of work into parts which would avoid the necessity of a license to bid, contract, or perform the work will be disregarded, and the divided parts treated as one contract for the purposes of deciding whether a license is required. That clause exists for one reason: splitting a $9,000 contract into two of $4,500 is the obvious way under the threshold, and the legislature said so in advance. Treat this as something for you to notice rather than as an accusation about anyone. There are ordinary reasons for two documents, a separate scope for a plumbing repair being the commonest. But if one piece of work on one wall arrives as two invoices that each land just under the line, you have been shown the pattern the statute was written to defeat, and the question to ask is simply whether the firm holds the license for the job as a whole.

Checking the license, and reading what it is worth

The board runs a free public Contractor Search at arlspublic.lslbc.louisiana.gov, searchable by contractor name, license number, city, parish, type of contractor and qualifying party, returning only currently active licenses, with the board's own note that it is a courtesy and may lag recent changes. A minute there is worth more than any badge on a van. When you do find the firm, read the license for what it is. R.S. 37:2156.1(G) requires twenty-four hours of training in mold remediation and basic mold assessment and liability cover of at least fifty thousand dollars, and R.S. 37:2156.1(B)(2) sets a net worth test of twenty-five thousand dollars for the specialty. That is a floor, honestly described, and on a large job the net worth figure is also the size of the business standing behind your deposit.

What to ask for when your job is genuinely under the line

Ask for the written report anyway, as a condition of the work rather than as a legal right, because it is the only thing that lets you compare two quotes on the same terms. Then apply the federal guidance, which does not change at $7,500. The EPA says that if the moldy area is less than about 10 square feet, roughly three feet by three feet, in most cases a homeowner can handle the job themselves. It says that a chemical or biocide that kills mold, chlorine bleach for example, is not recommended as a routine practice during cleanup, so a quote that is mostly spraying with no removal and no moisture work is not following the federal guidance. And it says absorbent or porous materials such as ceiling tiles and carpet may have to be thrown away if they become moldy, so expect a scope to name what comes out rather than promising to save everything.

Work that crosses the line without anyone deciding to

A job can pass $7,500 on the way through, and two New Orleans rules make that likelier than it sounds. The city states that a permit is needed to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish or change the occupancy of a building, while interior painting, papering and similar finish work is exempt. A real mold repair usually means opening a wall, so it is on the permit side of that line and somebody has to pull it. More significantly, the city's permit application requirements call for a benchmark certificate from a registered land surveyor, sealed and dated within six months, for new construction, additions and renovations where the work will exceed 50 percent of the value of the structure. A large mold repair on a modest house can cross that, and crossing it turns a repair into a substantial improvement that has to meet current flood elevation rules. Ask for the value calculation before work starts rather than after.

Doing it yourself is expressly permitted here

R.S. 37:2157(A)(17) exempts a residential property owner who performs mold remediation on his own property from licensure entirely, and it extends the same exemption to an owner or tenant, or a managing agent or employee of either, working on property they own or lease, unless that person is in the business of performing mold remediation for the public. So the small job on your own house is yours to do if you want it, and the state says so. The thing that should decide it is not the law and not the size of the patch. It is whether you know where the water is arriving from. The EPA's position is that the way to control indoor mold growth is to control moisture, and a patch cleaned off a wall that is still condensing every July will be back next August.

Keeping the two halves separate at any price

Above the threshold, routing both halves of a job to one firm, or to two firms under one owner, would put that contractor in violation of R.S. 37:2158(A)(19)(c) and (d). Below it, nothing stops it, which is exactly why we do not do it. We arrange the assessment with one firm and the removal with another, separately owned, at every price, and you get the findings in writing either way. One last piece of local housekeeping that catches people out: nine of the sixteen places we cover, Metairie, Harvey, Marrero, River Ridge, Terrytown, Chalmette, Arabi, Belle Chasse and Laplace, are Census designated places with no municipal government of their own, so your permit and your floodplain rules come from the parish and not from the mailing address. Tell us what you are looking at and we will start with the assessment.