Every change order on a covered home improvement job now has to carry the subcontractor disclaimer. Not just the original contract. Each change order.
Business and Professions Code section 7159, subdivision (c)(7)(C), says it plainly: “If there is a change order during the project, the same disclaimer set forth in subparagraph (B) shall be on each change order.”
For electricians that is where SB 517 will bite. You open a wall, pull a panel cover, or trace a dead circuit. The scope grows, the price changes, and the new document needs the disclaimer.
What SB 517 actually did
SB 517, authored by Senator Niello, is Chapter 585, Statutes of 2025. The Governor approved it October 10, 2025, after the Senate concurred in the Assembly amendments 40 to 0 on September 11. It took effect January 1, 2026.
The bill amended section 7159, and it did two things. It placed responsibility for completing the project according to the home improvement contract, plans, and specifications on the prime or direct contractor. It also added a subcontractor disclosure to home improvement contracts.
The first change reads, at subdivision (a)(5)(B): “For purposes of administrative discipline under this chapter, the prime or direct contractor is responsible for completion of the project in accordance with the home improvement contract, plans, and specifications. This prime or direct contractor responsibility shall not preclude administrative discipline against any subcontractor or home improvement salesperson on a home improvement contract for violation of this chapter.”
You own completion of the project. That does not shield a subcontractor from discipline for the subcontractor’s own violation.
The contract needs a Yes or a No either way
Subdivision (c)(7)(A) requires that “the contract shall contain a statement regarding whether or not a subcontractor will be used on the project, including a portion to be checked in response,” followed by a Yes checkbox and a No checkbox.
The statement is required whether you sub anything out or not. If your own crew does all the work, you check No. You do not get to leave the provision off the form because it does not apply to you.
If Yes is checked, subdivision (c)(7)(B) requires this language: “One or more subcontractors will be used on this project, and the contractor is aware that a list of subcontractors is required to be provided, upon request, along with the names, contact information, license number, and classification of those subcontractors.”
Read that carefully, because it is being described wrong elsewhere. The list does not have to be attached when the contract is signed. What the contract has to carry is your acknowledgment that the list is owed on request. The statute sets no deadline for responding once a request comes in.
Leaving the language out is not a paperwork nit. Subdivision (a)(5)(A) provides that “failure by the licensee, their agent or salesperson, or by a person subject to be licensed under this chapter, to provide the specified information, notices, and disclosures in the contract, or to otherwise fail to comply with any provision of this section, is cause for discipline.” The statute stops there and does not name a dollar figure, so treat a missing section 7159 provision as a licensing exposure rather than a fine you can price in, the same way you would treat the CSLB civil penalty changes arriving on their own schedule.
Change orders were already supposed to be signed
Section 7159 covers an agreement between a contractor and an owner, or between a contractor and a tenant, for a home improvement, where the aggregate contract price specified in one or more improvement contracts exceeds five hundred dollars. SB 517 did not touch that threshold.
Subdivision (d) already required that “a home improvement contract and any changes to the contract shall be in writing and signed by the parties to the contract prior to the commencement of work.” So the change order was always supposed to exist on paper and be signed before the added work started. SB 517 adds required content to a document you were already obligated to produce.
That is the practical trap. When discovery on a panel upgrade call rewrites the booked scope, the revised paperwork needs more than a new price and a description of the added work. If subcontractors are on the job, it needs the disclaimer too.
Your customer has already been told to ask
The mechanics lien warning that has long been part of these contracts tells the homeowner, in the document they sign, “you can protect yourself from liens by getting a list from your contractor of all the subcontractors and material suppliers that work on your project.”
That advice sits right next to the warning that “even if you pay your contractor in full, unpaid subcontractors, suppliers, and laborers who helped to improve your property may record mechanics liens and sue you in court to foreclose the lien.” So one document now tells your customer to ask for the list and carries your written acknowledgment that you owe it on request. Expect the question.
The list puts each sub’s classification on paper
When the request arrives, the list has four required items: name, contact information, license number, and classification.
Classification means the subcontractor’s CSLB classification letter, which makes a sub working outside their classification visible to the customer on paper. That is worth checking in advance on any scope where the licensing boundary is genuinely contested, which is the situation the stayed C-10 and C-46 battery storage rule left open. Verify license status and classification for your regular subs now, not while you are assembling a response.
Your 2025 form is probably wrong in two places
Section 7159 was amended twice in the 2025 session. SB 517 added the subcontractor provisions. AB 1327 added the contractor’s email address and email cancellation, effective the same January 1, 2026. A contract form that was compliant last year can be missing both, so pull the AB 1327 email and cancellation changes into the same revision pass rather than fixing one and coming back later.
Then go through the change order template separately. Updating only the original contract leaves the document electricians generate most often sitting out of compliance.
The request is a phone event
A subcontractor list is owed on request, and that request usually arrives by phone. It shows up mid-job from a homeowner who just read the lien warning, or from a spouse who was never on the original call.
Capture who is asking, the job address, exactly what they asked for, and the date and time of the request. A timestamped record turns a disputed phone conversation into a documented request and a documented response, which is the same reason the rest of what you capture on every electrical call belongs in writing.
Keep a current roster of your regular subs with contact information, license numbers, classifications, and verified license status, so answering takes minutes instead of days. Then fix both document paths. The Yes or No statement goes in the original contract, and the disclaimer goes on every change order where subs are involved, before the added work starts rather than after the invoice goes out.
