I received an email today from a reader who was looking for an answer to this question:

Do I have to submit an experience outline with my application if I held the same classification over five years ago? The email stated:

Dear Mr. Cocciante:

Your Blog is a wonderful resource and I am happy I discovered it. I have a question I hope you can answer. Here is the scenario: Contractor fails to renew license, license expires, five years pass. Contractor must now apply for new a.k.a. Original License. Does Contractor need to complete and have Certification of Experience form signed? Per Bus. & Prof. Code 825(b) applicant “may compute experience without regard to the ten-year limitation.” So, essentially, Contractor may use the exact work experience used to obtain original license, and given that Contractor held license, clearly he has met the four-year minimum requirement … which leads me to the question of does Contractor need to include a Certification of Work Experience form?

I have read conflicting answers in another blog. One time they said the form was not required, another time they said it was. When I called the CSLB, a tech told me all Contractor needs to do is write “See License No. XXXX” on the Experience form; another tech had a different answer.

I’m hoping you have some insight for me. I very sincerely appreciate your time. Perhaps this topic may be a good one to blog about. I imagine I’m not the only one trying to figure this out. Plus, with the fires in Northern California, seems like a lot of guys are getting back into construction after having let their licenses expire.

Kind regards,
Jessica T.

My reply:

Hello Jessica,

Thank you for the kind words.

I can tell you as a former cslb application technician, and a service provider that deals with current application techs, that he would not need to submit his experience with a new application.

On the first page of the app it will ask him to provide any license he is/was associated with. The app tech will look up that license number to verify that he held the same classification previously that is being applied for now and will post the application to the exams.

Having said that, there is always a slim chance that they may ask for an experience outline and verifying documents (depending on the classification being applied for) for this type of application.

~End

Thank you Jessica for your email and allowing me to post it here. Questions from my readers are always welcomed.