Case: the complaint that arrived three years later
In one paragraph
Thirty-nine months after a kitchen remodel, a letter from CSLB: the former customer, now selling the house, alleges the electrician's work was substandard and unpermitted because the buyer's inspector found a bootleg splice in the attic and a bedroom circuit without AFCI protection. Camila Reyes opens the job file the same afternoon: the signed contract with the 7159 notices, the permit and final inspection record, the change order the customer signed for the two attic circuits, 84 photographs including the one of the AFCI breaker she installed, and the options sheet on which the customer declined to correct a pre-existing splice she had documented in a different part of the attic. The complaint closes at the notice stage without a finding, and nothing appears on her license. The names are invented; the process is CSLB's.
The rule
A complaint about patent acts may be filed with CSLB up to four years after the act (B&P 7091(a)); CSLB reviews it, notifies the contractor to encourage resolution, may mediate, and investigates to a clear-and-convincing standard using the contract, permit, payment and photographic record; a complaint resolved in the contractor's favor is not disclosed on the license (7124.6(c)(1)). The file that answers it is the one the license law already required: the signed contract with notices (7159(c)(3)), the written change orders (7159(c)(5)), the permit and inspection record, and the documented options the customer declined.
Why it matters
The complaint you cannot answer is the one about a job you no longer remember. Thirty-nine months is inside the window, the customer's memory has been rewritten by a home inspector's report, and the only witness on your side is paper. The case is the four-year rule turning into a Tuesday afternoon, and the file turning it back.