Contractors board awards record amount to homeowners

Jennifer Shubinski

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

Source: Nevada State Contractors Board

Homeowners who filed claims against the recovery fund won't receive a windfall, however. Most won't get enough to cover the damage to their homes, to cover the costs of incomplete work or to recover money paid for upfront for work that never materialized.

The most any of the claimants will receive is $10,000, and the least is $337, despite claims of as much as $30,000 by some of the homeowners. The amount awarded by the contractors board is dependent on a number of factors, including how much work had been done.

Sonya Ruffin, Nevada State Contractors spokeswoman, said some people felt they had more than $30,000 in losses, but state law only allows people to claim up to that amount, no matter what the actual loss.

Among the complaints, homeowners claimed that Curtis Construction took money and didn't perform any work, started work but never finished, or performed inadequate work.

The board found that Curtis Construction had performed substandard workmanship, failed to comply with a notice to correct, failed to establish financial responsibility, disregarded building laws, worked with an unlicensed person, abandoned construction projects and other administrative violations.

The board revoked the almost 30-year-old company's license in June. Once a contractor's license had been revoked, people can file claims with the state contractors board to try and collect losses from the state's Residential Recovery Fund. On Monday that money was awarded.

During its three decades in operation in the valley, Curtis Construction, owned by George and Mary Curtis, had few problems with the contractors board, Ruffin said. It wasn't until recently that the complaints started pouring in.

In July 2003, the Curties sold the business to someone named Frank Hall, according to information submitted to the board during hearings, although that sale was never recorded with the secretary of state and a transfer of contractor's license never occurred at the contractors board.

In May 2004, George Curtis, a longtime Las Vegas boxing referee, died at the age of 79.

The contractors board deemed the sale of the business unlawful and held the living licensee -- Mary Curtis -- responsible.

Curtis could not be reached for comment. The phone number at the company's last known office was disconnected.

The Residential Recovery Fund was established by the Nevada Legislature in 1999. Under certain conditions, it provides limited monetary compensation to single-family homeowners in the event that they have been damaged by a licensed contractor's failure to appropriately execute a contract and have exhausted all other means of recovery.

A single claim cannot exceed $30,000 and claims against a single contractor cannot exceed $200,000, no matter how many people are involved.

Because of the high amount of losses and the number of people involved in the Curtis Construction case, the contractors board plans to ask the Legislature to increase that amount to $400,000, Ruffin said.

"Everybody wasn't getting the full loss for that reason, and that's unfortunate because there was so many of them," she said.