Legal Question in Construction Law in California

Hiring an unlicensed contractor is one of the most risky things a homeowner can do. Not only are you likely to wind up in the situation you find yourself in now, if he or any of his workers had been injured you would have been personally liable, and the domestic employee coverage of your homeowners insurance would almost certainly not have covered construction workers for unlicensed contractors. Chances are very good that he never pulled proper permits too, which will diminish the value of your property when you go to resell it. Count yourself lucky you only have over-paid for an unfinished job.

The up-side to hiring an unlicensed contractor is that they not only cannot ever sue for breach of contract, if you sue them they have to give you all your money back. They are not entitled to keep any money they collect for unlicensed work. So you definitely can bring in someone else to finish the job. You can also sue him for all the money you have paid him. Lastly, although this is unlikely, if the total amount to finish the work somehow winds up being more than the total amouth you originally agreed to pay the unlicenses contractor, he may owe you that too.