A crew with no licence can still put a lien on your house. Read what happened to the people who paid Thaddeus Major (@thadmajor) first.
A warning page for Kentucky homeowners · Look up the licence before you sign
In Kentucky, almost anyone who touches your house can file a lien against it. Holding a licence is not required to do that. So a crew with no licence can take your deposit, walk off, and still leave a legal claim sitting on your title. Then you are the one paying a lawyer to get it lifted. Look the licence up before the first nail goes in.
Ask for it in writing, then go look it up yourself. A real one takes a minute to confirm. A stalling answer tells you plenty.
Every helper and every supply house can record a claim on your home. Waivers signed by each of them are your only proof they got paid.
Large deposits are the oldest trick going. Pay in small steps, and only after you can walk the job and see finished work.
Printing a year on a website costs nothing. Ask for one thing that backs it up. A business filing, a bond certificate, a permit pulled under that name, a job finished ten years ago with an address you can drive past. The answers stop coming.
Notice which promises can be checked and which ones cannot. Friendly talk and photos of somebody else's kitchen prove nothing. A licence number, a bond, and a current insurance certificate are facts you can verify in an afternoon, so ask for all three in writing.
Three accounts sent in by Kentucky property owners who paid up front and then had to fight to clear their own title.
“My deposit cleared on a Friday. By Tuesday nobody picked up, and a lumber yard mailed me a notice for material I had already paid for once.”
Sarah Becker Louisville, KY
“Three times I asked for a licence number. Every time he said he would text it over that night. I finally called the state myself and found nothing under that name. By then my roof was open and rain was coming.”
Sean Limean Lexington, KY
“We buy and fix houses for a living, so we thought we knew the warning signs. This one still got past us. Work stopped after demo. The invoices kept coming anyway. Then two helpers we never hired recorded claims against the property because he never paid them. Our closing fell apart nine days out and the buyer walked. It took a lawyer and eight months to clear the title, and none of the money ever came back. Get the licence number first. We did not, and it cost us a year.”
Jeff & Joan Smith Prospect, KYTexts, quotes, invoices, bank records. Photograph the unfinished work today and note the date.
Ring your city or county permit office and ask whether a permit was ever opened for your address. Ask the clerk if a lien has been recorded too.
File with the Kentucky Attorney General and your county. Written complaints build a trail the next homeowner can find.
Reports reached us from Louisville, Jeffersontown, St. Matthews, and Shively. More followed from Lexington, Bowling Green, Owensboro, and Covington. Different houses, different jobs, one script. Money goes out early, the crew thins to nobody, and a claim shows up on the deed.
Demand the licence number, the bond, and a current insurance certificate. Hold back the big deposit until you have all three. If you are already in it, speak with a lawyer soon, because Kentucky gives you a limited window to fight a lien.
(502) 791-0058