BOROUGH HALL — Council Member Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan), chairman of the New York City Council’s Consumer Affairs Committee, has scheduled a hearing at 1 p.m. on Feb. 15 in Brooklyn Borough Hall on home improvement contractors.
 

 New Yorkers have expressed ongoing concerns about experiences with home improvement contractors.  The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) ranks this industry — for the third year in a row — as having the second highest number of DCA complaints, with many of those complaints concerning contractors operating without DCA licenses.
 

 Customers have expressed frustration on a range of topics — from being confused by legal documents to contractors simply walking off a job before it is finished.  Some have cautioned that once a contractor has started a job, it becomes perilous to fire him and hire someone new, since most contractors are unwilling to sign documentation vouching for someone else’s work.
 

 At this hearing in Brooklyn, the borough with the highest number of complaints against home improvement contractors, Garodnick will explore new rules that would require home improvement contractors to use a model contract in their negotiations with consumers and to provide a written estimate of the work to be completed.   

 “It’s no secret that home improvement contractors can be difficult, and the high number of complaints against them reveals a real problem,” said Garodnick.  “We want to give the maximum protections to consumers, and the council is poised to act to do that.”
 

If you have an experience that you’d like to share with Garodnick in advance of the hearing, you should feel free to call his legislative office at (212)-788-7393 or email the committee’s consumer tip line at fightfraud [email protected].