{
  "locale": "en",
  "access": {
    "cost": "free",
    "signupRequired": false,
    "loginRequired": false,
    "readCountsAreAnonymous": true,
    "readingHistoryAssociatedWithReader": false,
    "note": "Everything here is free to read. There is no account, no signup, and no login. Verifiant counts anonymous reads of each lesson; no reading history is associated with you."
  },
  "notice": "Verifiant is not the State of Arizona, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, or a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. It describes public process and public record, and links to the official sources so you can read them yourself.",
  "officialStepsNotice": "This describes what a public process is. It does not say what will happen, and Verifiant does not file, escalate, or intervene in any official process on anyone's behalf.",
  "officialStep": {
    "slug": "a-complaint-to-the-registrar",
    "locale": "en",
    "stage": "after-bad-work",
    "title": "A Complaint to the Registrar of Contractors",
    "body": "The Registrar of Contractors is the agency that licenses contractors in Arizona, and it accepts complaints about the work of the contractors it licenses. This page describes what that process is, in plain terms, from the Registrar's own pages.\n\nA complaint to the Registrar is not a lawsuit. It is a report to the licensing agency about licensed work, and the agency's own pages describe what it does with one: it investigates, and where its standards were not met, it acts on the license.",
    "sections": [
      {
        "heading": "What the Process Is",
        "body": "The Registrar's complaint-process page describes an investigation: a complaint about workmanship or abandonment is received, an inspector looks at the work, and the contractor is given the chance to correct what does not meet the standards the license is held to.\n\nThe process runs on the license, not on the money. What the Registrar examines is whether licensed work met the State's standards, and what it can reach is the license itself."
      },
      {
        "heading": "What It Can End in, and What It Cannot",
        "body": "The Registrar investigates and disciplines; it does not write checks. Its own pages describe outcomes on the license: a corrective work order, and a license suspended or revoked where the standards were not met. Money, when any comes back, travels a different road entirely: the Recovery Fund, the surety behind the license, or a court."
      },
      {
        "heading": "The Window the Statute Names",
        "body": "Arizona law names two years as the window: a workmanship or abandonment complaint has to reach the Registrar within two years of the act or omission. For a brand new home, the statute starts that clock at close of escrow or the day someone actually moves in, whichever comes first."
      },
      {
        "heading": "Where the Money Lives Instead",
        "body": "The Registrar's Recovery Fund page describes two roads into the fund for a qualifying homeowner, and only one of them runs through a courtroom: an administrative filing inside the Registrar's own process, or a court judgment brought to the Registrar afterward. Nothing on that page requires suing anyone first."
      }
    ],
    "officialLinks": [
      {
        "label": "Arizona ROC, the complaint process",
        "url": "https://roc.az.gov/complaint-process-investigation"
      },
      {
        "label": "A.R.S. § 32-1162, the complaint window",
        "url": "https://www.azleg.gov/ars/32/01162.htm"
      },
      {
        "label": "Arizona ROC, the Recovery Fund",
        "url": "https://roc.az.gov/recovery-fund"
      }
    ],
    "factType": "official_process",
    "checkedAt": "2026-08-11",
    "publicationStatus": "published",
    "updatedOn": "2026-08-11",
    "path": "/learn/official-steps/a-complaint-to-the-registrar"
  }
}