California Business and Professions Code

§ 7158

BPC § 7158 Effective Sep 18, 2020Div. 3 · Ch. 9 · Art. 10

Statute text

(a)Any person who shall accept or receive a completion certificate or other evidence that performance of a contract for a work of improvement, including, but not limited to, a home improvement, is complete or satisfactorily concluded, with knowledge that the document is false and that the performance is not substantially completed, and who shall utter, offer, or use the document in connection with the making or accepting of any assignment or negotiation of the right to receive any payment from the owner, under or in connection with a contract, or for the purpose of obtaining or granting any credit or loan on the security of the right to receive any payment shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of not less than five hundred dollars ($500) nor more than five thousand dollars ($5,000), or to imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not less than one month nor more than one year, or both.

(b)(1) Any person who violates this section as part of a plan or scheme to defraud an owner of a residential or nonresidential structure, including a mobilehome or manufactured home, in connection with the offer or performance of repairs to the structure for damage caused by a natural disaster, shall be ordered by the court to make full restitution to the victim based on the person’s ability to pay, defined as the overall capability of the defendant to reimburse the costs, or a portion of the costs, including consideration of, but not limited to, all of the following:

(A)The defendant’s present financial position.

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Legislative history

Repealed (in Sec. 3) and added by Stats. 2020, Ch. 92, Sec. 4. (AB 1869) Effective September 18, 2020. Operative July 1, 2021, by its own provisions.