Legal Question in Construction Law in California

Re: Receiving Payment for work done

It depends.

If you are unlicensed and you did work for which a license is required, you might get paid if the client is willing to pay you, but since the work was illegal, you have no power of enforcement in court, and the client may know that, or may just decide to withhold payment, and you're out of luck since you have no recourse to the courts.

If you are licensed, but the work done falls into the "home improvement" category for which a written contract is necessary, I believe the following is true based on research I did a long time ago: You can't enforce the oral contract (or a contract implied in fact, either), but a court would probably give you a judgment for the fair value of the work done and materials furnished, less payments already made, on a so-called "quasi contract" or "quantum meruit" basis.

In all other cases, i.e., not home improvement and no unlicensed contractor issue (because you had a license or one wasn't required) an oral contract should be just as enforceable as a written contract, the problem being to prove to a judge or jury just what the terms of the contract were. Also, the statute of limitations for a suit on an oral contract is only two years vs. four on a written agreement.