Surety Blog

Please click here to view the PDF in regards to the 2012 revisions to lien laws.

Unfortunately, in the past few years, we have heard of several cases where a General Contractor has made claim on a subcontractor bond after the sub defaults, and the surety is very slow to respond. As the GC sits and waits for the surety to respond, the job needs to be completed. If the GC […]

Congress will be voting on a 100 billion dollar transportation bill in July.  As their approval indicates, this congress can rarely get anything done.  Unfortunately, a stalemate in Washington could bring construction in Florida grinding to a halt.  Included in that transportation bill are Federal projects like the construction on the I-4 corridor connecting Tampa […]

I was fortunate to sit in on a round table of small business owners on Tuesday at an attorney’s office in Winter Park. There were architects, window installation contractors, general contractors, bankers, insurance agents, engineers, and most interestingly Mike Stewart of Stewart Electric Motor Works.http://www.semw.net/.

Everyone talked about how tough it has been since 2007. Many […]

Guest Post By:

Robert High, President of H.J. High Construction. (www.hjhigh.com)
May 7, 2012

When discussing the government, most people focus their frustrations on our president, Congress, or the Supreme Court. However, closer to home we’re finding an increased government burden in our industry that is quietly costing all of us an exorbitant amount of time […]

In a recent release from the United States Census, it was reported that 9% of all U.S. Businesses are Veterans Owned. These Veteran owned businesses had an impressive sales receipts of $1.2 trillion, 5.8 million employees, and an annual payroll of $210 billion. Clearly, veterans are major contributors to the US economy. Construction companies were […]

The economists at the Association of Builders and Contractors released data last week that shows that although private nonresidential construction spending was down in January, it was up 16.6 percent compared to January 2011. Public nonresidential spending remains pretty flat and was up only 0.4% from a year ago. The slow growth in public spending […]

The government is one of rules. They follow their rules whether they make sense or not. One of the rules that can trip up a potential 8(a) contractor is that you cannot qualify if your business is economically dependent on one commercial client for 70% or more of its revenue during the last months. The […]

Surprisingly, the answer is no. The surety’s first responsibility is to make good on the bonds issued. They have to deal with their obligations related to the performance and payment bonds. Their second responsibility is to conserve the assets of their surety. They actually have no obligation to finance any contractor. They may do so […]

According to figures released by the Associated General Contractors of America, raw material prices have risen 8.1% in the past year, while the price contractors have been able to charge for new nonresidential construction has risen by only two or three percent. In other words, in this tough economy, contractors have been forced to eat […]