HVAC & Mechanical in Ohio
Ohio has no filing for the sale of an HVAC company, and one form that decides it.
Nothing at the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board records a change of ownership, so the provisions that decide an Ohio sale sit elsewhere in Chapter 4740: a ninety-day clock that starts when a form is completed rather than when the owner walks out, a bar on one individual qualifying more than one company at a time, and a subsection deeming every license violation by the buyer's company to have been committed personally by the qualifier the seller left behind. Ohio also decides whether a technician's covenant reaches the buyer at all, and the answer turns on whether the deal is a merger or an asset purchase. And ORC 4740.12 leaves a gap between the registration fees a city may charge and the state license it must condition them on, which the cities in a service area do not fill the same way.
Cincinnati / Columbus / Cleveland / Dayton
Ninety days that start with a form, not with your last day
Mechanical licensing runs through a qualifying individual, in Ohio as in most states that license the trade. ORC 4740.07(A) issues licenses in the name of the individual except as the section otherwise provides, and 4740.07(B) is the exception that matters: once the individual assigns the license to a contracting company that employs them, the board issues the license in the company's name, stating the assigning individual's name and position. A license nobody has assigned goes to inactive status. HVAC, refrigeration and hydronics are separate licenses under ORC 4740.01(A), so a full mechanical contractor carries three assignments rather than one, and a target that presents as full mechanical while holding a single HVAC assignment is doing part of its work unlicensed.
Chapter 4740 stops at the door of a house. ORC 4740.01(F) defines a construction project to exclude a residential building, and ORC 3781.06(C)(9) defines that as a one-family, two-family or three-family dwelling house and any accessory structure incidental to it. Work confined to those buildings sits outside the chapter, and the state asks for no HVAC license to do it. The carve-out is narrower than its summary: the same subsection removes industrialized units, manufactured homes and mobile homes from the definition, so a company with real manufactured-housing volume is not outside Chapter 4740 at all.
A residential-only company is unlicensed by Ohio and still regulated by it. ORC Chapter 4722, the Home Construction Service Suppliers Act, reaches the same one-, two- and three-family population that 4740.01(F) carves out, and defines home construction service to include the repair, improvement, remodel or renovation of an existing structure. ORC 4722.02 requires a written contract carrying nine mandated terms on any job of $25,000 or more, among them a certificate of insurance showing general liability of at least $250,000, and sets an estimate mechanism keyed to costs running more than $5,000 over. ORC 4722.06 and 4722.07 give the Attorney General investigative authority and civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation on a two-year limitations period, and 4722.08 gives the property owner rescission, actual damages, up to $5,000 in noneconomic damages and fees for a knowing violation. A contract template missing one of the nine terms carries the same defect on every job it was used for.
ORC 4740.07(D)(1) requires the contractor or the contracting company to notify the appropriate specialty section immediately when the contractor ceases to be associated with the company for any reason, including death. Invalidation runs on a different trigger: ninety calendar days after the contractor's death, ninety calendar days after the contractor completes a change of company form, or an earlier date the contracting company and the contractor agree under (D)(1)(c). Departure by itself starts nothing. A selling owner-qualifier who retires and never completes the form leaves the company in breach of the notice duty with no protected window running at all, and a form completed late moves the outside date with it. The ninety days cannot be counted from the qualifier's last shift, so the filing belongs in the closing documents as a dated deliverable.
The same section forecloses the obvious workaround. ORC 4740.07(F) bars an individual who has assigned a license to one contracting company from assigning a license for the same type of contracting to another until the first assignment is invalid under (D), and 4740.07(C) stops the board from issuing that individual a second license of the same type while the first assignment stands. In an asset sale where the seller's owner-qualifier is also the intended qualifier for the buyer's new entity, the new entity cannot take the assignment at closing. The default gap is ninety days, and inside it the buyer's entity cannot hold itself out as an HVAC contractor. Subsection (D)(1)(c) is the way through and it takes two signatures: an early-invalidation agreement between the seller entity and the contractor, executed at closing, collapses the gap to nothing. The board's operational version of the same instrument is a signed letter of release from the previous company, which it treats as permitting immediate reassignment. The board runs its ninety days from the date it receives written notice and the statute runs them from completion of the change of company form, so the two can date the same gap differently. Because the agreement is bilateral, no departing seller can spring it on a buyer, and a buyer that failed to secure it at closing is asking a former owner for a favor. Wraith represents Ohio sellers directly, because that consent is the seller's to give and it belongs on the same table as the price.
OAC 4101:16-2-09(D) requires every active licensee, inactive licenses excepted, to carry contractor's liability insurance including complete operations coverage of at least $500,000, in the individual's name by default and in the business entity's name once the license is assigned to an entity, and requires that entity to be registered with the Ohio Secretary of State to do business in Ohio. The board's change of company checklist adds a certificate of insurance for the new company naming OCILB as certificate holder, a $25 fee per trade, and payroll records showing taxable income from the new company. The policy in the buyer entity's name and that entity's Ohio registration are conditions precedent to the assignment rather than items to chase after closing.
The standard fix, keeping the seller on as qualifier through a transition, carries an Ohio price. ORC 4740.07(E) deems any work a contracting company conducts under an assigned license to be conducted under the personal supervision of the individual named in the license, and deems any violation of a term of that license to have been committed by that individual. A seller who stays on is personally answerable to the board for the license conduct of a company the buyer now staffs and directs. That seller should hold a defined right to complete the change of company form on stated triggers, because the exposure runs until the assignment is invalid, not until the transition ends.
Sourcing a replacement after closing is not a plan. A new qualifier needs a BCI criminal records check with FBI results returned to the board under OAC 4101:16-2-02(D) before being approved to sit for the examination, the specialty section then has up to ninety days after the application is filed to authorize issuance under ORC 4740.06(F), and a failed examination cannot be retaken for sixty days under 4740.06(G)(1). The board's own ninety days can consume the entire window the departing assignment leaves open. A buyer importing a qualifier from one of the eleven states OCILB holds a written reciprocity agreement with under OAC 4101:16-2-10 skips the examination and the retake bar with it, though the trades each agreement covers are not uniform, so confirm HVAC coverage with the specialty section before a closing date depends on it.
A merger carries the technician covenants across; an asset purchase does not
On reconsideration in Acordia of Ohio, L.L.C. v. Fishel, 133 Ohio St.3d 356, 2012-Ohio-4648, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that under R.C. 1701.82(A)(3) and 1705.39 employee noncompete agreements pass to the surviving company by operation of law in a merger and may be enforced as if that company had stepped into the shoes of the original contracting companies, provided the agreements are reasonable, and it corrected the earlier statement that the agreements needed successors and assigns language. The court confined the holding to noncompete agreements in a merger and said expressly that nothing in it addresses the effect of a merger on any other company contract. There is no equivalent rule for an asset purchase. An asset buyer either finds an assignment clause in each technician agreement or re-papers the covenants at closing, on the day a technician has the most reason to decline.
Senate Bill 11 of the 136th General Assembly would enact ORC 4119.01 through 4119.04 to prohibit agreements restraining a person from engaging in a lawful profession after employment ends, and it stands in its As Introduced version with no signed date and no effective date. The covenants sitting in a target's technician files are read under Ohio common law, which makes them potentially enforceable rather than presumptively void. Because Ohio reforms an overbroad covenant under Raimonde v. Van Vlerah, 42 Ohio St.2d 21, 325 N.E.2d 544 (1975), a radius drawn wider than the territory a technician actually served gets trimmed to that territory rather than discarded.
The board's published guidance for licensees states that tradespeople working under a license must be employed by the company, appear on its payroll and receive a W-2, or be hired through a nationally recognized temporary agency, and that a worker paid on a 1099 is an independent contractor who must personally hold a state license for the trade. The board separately treats employees leased from a professional employer organization, an alternate employer organization or a temporary agency, which the board's formulation does not mention. A commercial Ohio target running a 1099 install crew is carrying an unlicensed-contracting finding, and the fix is not automatically a hire: a crew staffed through a PEO is a question for the specialty section rather than one the statute settles.
Cleveland registers a person, Cincinnati charges to change one
The boundary sits in ORC 4740.12. Subsection (A) bars a political subdivision from adopting an ordinance or rule requiring contractor registration and a registration or license fee unless the ordinance also requires the registrant to be licensed in the trade under Chapter 4740. Subsection (B) preserves local authority to regulate the installation, repair, maintenance and alteration of HVAC systems and to register tradespersons and charge them fees. Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati each read the space between those subsections differently, and a service area can cross all three.
Columbus resolves the gap toward the state. Its contractor licensing material tells applicants that working in the city as an electrical, HVAC, refrigeration, hydronics or plumbing contractor requires being licensed by the State of Ohio in the trade applied for, and its category list carries a single OCILB Contractor class with no residential alternative; the residential categories it publishes are general and limited home improvement classes rather than HVAC ones. For a residential Ohio target with Columbus-area revenue there is no version of the deal in which the qualifier is absent.
Cleveland answers the other way. Its Building and Housing HVAC registration package requires a city registration backed by a $25,000 bond and a certificate of insurance of at least $200,000 naming the City of Cleveland as both additional insured and certificate holder, and its application form carries a 1, 2, 3 FAMILY ONLY election alongside ALL WORK. The instructions warn that a renewal registration without a state license will be limited to a residential-only registration. Whether a fee-bearing residential-only registration survives ORC 4740.12(A), which conditions municipal registration fees on state licensure, is unsettled, so treat the municipal layer as the operative gate while knowing the footing under that half of it has not been tested. The registration is also a personal certificate of qualification, asking for the individual's date of birth, Social Security number and photograph next to the company name, which is why it does not follow an entity change on its own. Confirm the current amounts with Building and Housing before a closing budget rests on them.
Cincinnati requires no contractor bond at all and sets its insurance floor far above Cleveland's: liability of no less than $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, with umbrella coverage of not less than $10,000,000 for some categories, plus proof of Ohio workers' compensation coverage and a copy of the state license from an OCILB-registered contractor. Registration runs $125 plus surcharges, $131.25 a year. A mid-term change to an issued registration costs $78.00, and the chargeable events include reassignment of a registration and adding, changing or deleting an OCILB license holder. A buyer's entity triggers both of those on its first day. Map the service area city by city before signing, because the buyer's entity cannot register in Cleveland or Cincinnati until it holds the assignment, and the assignment is the thing ORC 4740.07(F) blocks.
The gap all of this sits in is the subject of a pending bill. Senate Bill 54 of the 136th General Assembly would enact ORC 4740.18 and amend 4740.99 to create an OCILB certification for residential HVAC, refrigeration, electrical, plumbing and hydronics contractors, issued to an individual associated with a residential contracting company and conditioned on liability insurance of not less than $250,000. It sits in the Senate Workforce Development Committee in its As Introduced version with no votes taken, and introduced bills frequently do not become law. If it passes, the residential company that needed no state license needs a certification held by a named individual, which is the dependency Chapter 4740 already creates on the commercial side.
Questions Ohio sellers ask
- If I sell the stock of my Ohio HVAC company, does the license survive the closing?
- Chapter 4740 has no change-of-ownership trigger, so an equity sale in which the entity survives, keeps its name, keeps its qualifier and keeps its insurance requires no refiling at OCILB. Change any of those and it does. If you were the qualifier and you leave, ORC 4740.07(D) runs from the day the change of company form is completed rather than from your last day. If the entity is renamed, the board's company name change process needs a letter of release on company letterhead signed by an authorized official of the company, and after an equity sale that authority sits with the buyer.
- Can a buyer bring in a qualifier from another state?
- Often faster than by examination. OAC 4101:16-2-10 permits the board to license without examination under written reciprocity agreements, and OCILB publishes a list of eleven reciprocal states. ORC 4740.06(C) separately lets the holder of a substantially similar out-of-state license qualify without the Ohio tradesperson history, and 4740.06(D) does the same for a uniformed-services applicant, though 4740.06(C)(3) requires that applicant's out-of-state employer to be registered in Ohio with a designated agent, which is its own lead-time item. A buyer with an operations executive already in house should also look at OAC 4101:16-2-01(H)(3)(c), the route for five years as the full-time owner, partner or employee of a licensed commercial contracting company in the trade.
- My company only does residential work. Is there a license in the deal at all?
- At the state level, usually not: ORC 4740.01(F) and 3781.06(C)(9) put one-, two- and three-family dwellings outside Chapter 4740. The answer changes at the city line, because Columbus requires the state license of every HVAC contractor working there with no residential category to fall back on. Check the manufactured-housing volume too, since 3781.06(C)(9) excludes industrialized units, manufactured homes and mobile homes from the carve-out. And the residential company is still a home construction service supplier under ORC Chapter 4722, where a contract missing one of the nine mandated terms carries civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation on a two-year limitations period.
- Will the non-competes my technicians signed transfer to the buyer?
- It depends on structure. In a merger, Acordia of Ohio, L.L.C. v. Fishel, 133 Ohio St.3d 356, 2012-Ohio-4648, has the agreements passing to the surviving company by operation of law under R.C. 1701.82(A)(3), enforceable as if that company were the original employer and subject to a reasonableness challenge. The court limited the holding to that context. An asset purchaser has no such rule, so each technician agreement needs an assignment or successors clause, or the covenants get re-papered at closing.
Where these facts come from
Everything above that is a rule rather than a judgment is listed here with its publisher and the date it was checked. Licensing, tax and non-compete rules change, sometimes without much notice. None of this is legal or tax advice, and it is not a substitute for your own counsel and CPA.
ORC 4740.01(A) defines license as a license the Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board issues to an individual as an HVAC, refrigeration, electrical, plumbing or hydronics contractor, so HVAC, refrigeration and hydronics are three separate licenses and a contracting company performing all three trades requires three separate license assignments, one for each. Subsection (C) defines contracting company. Subsection (F) defines a construction project as one involving a building subject to ORC Chapter 3781 but not an industrialized unit or a residential building as defined in section 3781.06 of the Revised Code.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 4740.01. Checked 2026-09-07.
That the HVAC license has a single class with no tiers, no monetary or job-size limit and no state surety bond is an observed absence across Chapter 4740 and OAC Chapter 4101:16-2 rather than an affirmative statement in either. The bonds in Ohio HVAC are municipal.
ORC 3781.06(C)(9) defines residential building as a one-family, two-family or three-family dwelling house and any accessory structure incidental to that dwelling house, and provides that residential building does not include an industrialized unit as defined in division (C)(3), a manufactured home as defined in division (C)(4), or a mobile home as defined in division (O) of section 4501.01.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 3781.06. Checked 2026-09-07.
ORC 4740.07(A) requires the board's administrative section, except as otherwise provided in the section, to issue and renew all licenses in the name of the individual who meets the requirements of section 4740.06. Subsection (B) is the exception: an individual may assign the license to a contracting company with whom the individual is employed, whereupon the board issues a license in the name of the contracting company stating the name and position of the assigning individual, and a license not assigned to a contracting company is placed in inactive status. Subsection (C) bars the board from issuing that individual a second license for the same type of contracting while the assignment stands. Subsection (D)(1) provides that if the contractor ceases to be associated with the contracting company for any reason, including death, the contractor or contracting company immediately shall notify the appropriate specialty section of the date on which the contractor ceased to be associated, and that the assignment becomes invalid (a) ninety calendar days after the death of the contractor, (b) ninety calendar days after the contractor completes a change of company form, or (c) at an earlier time to which the contracting company and the contractor agree. Subsection (D)(2) permits the company to continue operating only where another individual has assigned a license to it for the same type of contracting. Subsection (E) provides that any work the contracting company conducts under the assigned license is deemed to be conducted under the personal supervision of the individual named in the license and that any violation of any term of the license is deemed to have been committed by the individual named in the license. Subsection (F) bars an individual who has assigned a license to a contracting company from assigning a license for the same type of contracting to another contracting company until the original assignation is invalid under division (D). Subsection (G) requires the assigning individual to be actively engaged in business as the type of contractor for which the license is issued and readily available for consultation with the contracting company. Subsection (H) provides that no license assigned under the section shall be assigned to more than one contracting company at a time.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 4740.07. Checked 2026-09-07.
Division (D)(1)(c) requires the agreement of both the contracting company and the contractor, so neither side can shorten the ninety days alone. Chapter 4740 contains no filing keyed to a stock or asset purchase; the board's separate company name change process is an administrative filing, not a statutory change-of-ownership trigger.
ORC 4740.06(B)(2) requires an applicant to be a United States citizen or a documented legal resident. Subsection (B)(4) requires contractor's liability insurance in an amount the appropriate specialty section of the board determines and sets no dollar figure itself. Subsection (C) provides a qualification pathway for the holder of a substantially similar occupational license issued by another state, and (C)(3) requires that applicant's out-of-state employer to be registered as a foreign corporation or limited liability company in Ohio with a designated agent under ORC 1703.04 or 1706.511. Subsection (D) provides a pathway for applicants with substantially similar uniformed-services experience for three of the last five years. Subsection (F) gives the appropriate specialty section up to ninety days after the application was filed to authorize issuance. Subsection (G)(1) bars retaking a failed examination for sixty days. The section was amended by Senate Bill 131 of the 134th General Assembly effective December 29, 2023 and again by House Bill 96 of the 136th General Assembly effective September 30, 2025.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 4740.06. Checked 2026-09-07.
Section 4740.06 sets no dollar insurance figure and imposes no criminal records check; those come from the administrative rules cited separately. Division (L) restricts consideration of criminal history on renewal.
OAC 4101:16-2-09(D) requires all individuals holding a license, except an individual whose license has been placed in inactive status, to maintain contractor's liability insurance including complete operations coverage of at least $500,000 in the individual's name including, without limitation, complete operations coverage in an amount of at least five hundred thousand dollars, and provides that if an individual's license has been assigned to a business entity in accordance with section 4740.07 of the Revised Code, the contractor liability insurance shall be in the name of the business entity and the business entity must be registered with the Ohio secretary of state to do business in Ohio. The rule is effective May 13, 2022.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Administrative Code rule 4101:16-2-09. Checked 2026-09-07.
OAC 4101:16-2-02(D) requires a criminal records check through the Ohio bureau of criminal identification and investigation with FBI records requested through BCI, and subsections (C) and (G) condition approval to sit for the licensing examination on that check, with the examination administered by the board's approved testing agency under OAC 4101:16-2-03. Disqualifiers under ORC 4776.10 apply.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Administrative Code rule 4101:16-2-02. Checked 2026-09-07.
Neither the rule nor OAC 4101:16-2-03 names an examination vendor; the rules refer only to the approved or authorized testing agency. Any vendor name should be confirmed against a current board page before it is relied on.
OAC 4101:16-2-01(H)(3) sets out the experience routes to qualification, including (H)(3)(a), five years of trade experience, and (H)(3)(c), five years as the full-time owner, partner or employee of a licensed commercial contracting company in the trade. W-2s and IRS Schedule Cs appear in (H)(3)(a)(iv) as documentation of that experience at initial qualification.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Administrative Code rule 4101:16-2-01. Checked 2026-09-07.
OAC 4101:16-2-10 permits the board to grant a license without examination under written reciprocity agreements. The board publishes a list of eleven reciprocal states: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and Texas.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Administrative Code rule 4101:16-2-10. Checked 2026-09-07.
The rule authorizes reciprocity; the list of states and the trades covered in each is published by the board rather than by the rule, and the coverage is not uniform across trades. Confirm the current list and the HVAC coverage with the specialty section before planning a closing around it.
The board's published guidance for licensees and contracting companies provides that where a license holder leaves the company the license is assigned to, reassignment requires waiting ninety days from the date OCILB receives written notice, and that a signed letter of release from the previous company allows immediate reassignment. Its company name change checklist requires a completed company name change form signed by the applicant, a certificate of insurance for the new company listing OCILB as certificate holder, a $25 company name change fee per trade, a letter of release on company letterhead signed by an authorized company official, and proof of payroll records showing taxable income from the new company. The same guidance states that all tradespeople working under a license must be employed by the company, appear on its payroll and receive a W-2, or be hired through a nationally recognized temporary agency, and that workers paid by 1099 are independent contractors who must hold a state license for the trade. The board describes itself as licensing commercial contractors in five specialty trades and notes that local building departments may require the license for residential work.
Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Industrial Compliance, Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board, Contractors and Contracting Companies guidance. Checked 2026-09-07.
The board's pages did not render to automated retrieval during verification, so this is summarized from its published licensee guidance and change-of-company checklist rather than quoted from a retrievable document, and every operational detail here should be confirmed with the specialty section before it goes on a closing checklist. The board's ninety-days-from-written-notice formulation is not word for word the statutory trigger at ORC 4740.07(D)(1)(b), which runs from completion of a change of company form. The W-2 and temporary-agency formulation is also narrower than ORC 4740.131, which permits leasing employees from a professional employer organization, an alternate employer organization or a temporary agency; that tension is unresolved and no PEO arrangement should be treated as safe on the statute alone.
ORC 4740.12(A) provides that no political subdivision may adopt an ordinance or rule that requires contractor registration and the assessment of a registration or license fee unless that ordinance or rule also requires any contractor who registers and pays the registration or license fee to be licensed in the contractor's trade pursuant to Chapter 4740. Subsection (B) preserves local authority to regulate the installation, repair, maintenance or alteration of heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems and to register and charge fees to tradespersons.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 4740.12. Checked 2026-09-07.
Whether a municipal residential-only registration that charges a fee to a contractor who holds no Chapter 4740 license is consistent with subsection (A) does not appear to have been resolved by any reported decision. The page states the tension rather than an answer.
ORC 4722.01(B) defines home construction service to include the repair, improvement, remodel or renovation of an existing structure, and 4722.01(F) defines residential building as a one-, two-, or three-family dwelling. ORC 4722.02 requires a written contract with nine mandated terms for any home construction service of $25,000 or more, including a certificate of insurance showing general liability coverage of at least $250,000, and provides a mechanism for costs exceeding an estimate by more than $5,000. ORC 4722.06 and 4722.07 give the Attorney General investigative and enforcement authority with civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation and a two-year limitations period. ORC 4722.08 gives an owner rescission, actual damages, up to $5,000 in noneconomic damages, and attorney fees for a knowing violation. ORC 4722.01 was amended by House Bill 50 of the 135th General Assembly effective September 20, 2024.
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Ohio Revised Code § 4722.02 and Chapter 4722. Checked 2026-09-07.
Sections 4722.01, 4722.06, 4722.07 and 4722.08 are separate sections at the same site and should be read individually. This chapter is a consumer-protection statute rather than a licensing statute; nothing in it creates or substitutes for an HVAC license.
The City of Cleveland Department of Building and Housing HVAC Registration Package requires a separate city registration with a $25,000 bond and a certificate of insurance of at least $200,000 naming the City of Cleveland as both additional insured and certificate holder. The package states that all new registrations and commercial registrations must include a copy of the state of Ohio HVAC license and that a renewal registration without a state license will be limited to a residential-only registration. The application form offers a 1, 2, 3 FAMILY ONLY election alongside ALL WORK and collects the individual registrant's date of birth, Social Security number and photograph alongside the company name.
City of Cleveland Department of Building and Housing. Checked 2026-09-07.
The document is an image-only scan with no text layer and an embedded creation date of December 16, 2014, and the all-caps state-license warning contains a typographical error in the original. Its fee figures are of that vintage and are deliberately not quoted on this page. Confirm the bond and insurance amounts with Building and Housing before building a closing budget on them. The same package also contains a checklist line stating flatly that the state HVAC license must be attached, which is internally inconsistent with the residential-only renewal path described two paragraphs above it.
The City of Columbus contractor licensing material states that in order to work in the City of Columbus as an electrical, HVAC, refrigeration, hydronics, or plumbing contractor, applicants must be licensed by the State of Ohio in the trade for which application is being made. Its contractor category list contains a single OCILB Contractor class with no residential-only alternative for those trades; the residential categories it publishes are Home Improvement General and Home Improvement Limited, which are general-trades categories rather than HVAC ones.
City of Columbus, contractor licenses. Checked 2026-09-07.
Summarized from the city's contractor licensing pages rather than quoted from a single retrievable form, and the city has reorganized its web presence; confirm the current category list and the state-license condition with the licensing section before relying on it for a specific target's service area.
The City of Cincinnati Department of Buildings and Inspections Contractor Registration Checklist and Application requires liability insurance of no less than $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, with umbrella coverage of not less than $10,000,000 for some categories, proof of Ohio workers' compensation coverage, and a copy of the state license for an OCILB-registered contractor. It requires no contractor bond. Registration is $125 plus surcharges, $131.25 per year. Mid-term changes to an existing valid registration are performed for a $78.00 fee, and the chargeable changes include reassignment of a registration, adding, changing or substituting an insurance company, addition or deletion of authorized signatures, and adding, changing or deleting an OCILB license holder.
City of Cincinnati Department of Buildings and Inspections. Checked 2026-09-07.
Municipal fee schedules are revised on their own cycles. Confirm the current figures with Buildings and Inspections before a closing budget rests on them.
Senate Bill 11 of the 136th General Assembly, Prohibit post-employment agreement restraining career or business, would enact ORC sections 4119.01 through 4119.04 to prohibit agreements restraining a person from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business after employment ends. The bill's current version is As Introduced, with a null governor-signed date and a null effective date. Chapter 4119 does not exist in the Ohio Revised Code; a lookup for 4119 on the Legislative Service Commission's site returns no corresponding section number.
Ohio Legislature, Senate Bill 11 (136th General Assembly). Checked 2026-09-07.
A pending-bill page establishes the bill's status and the non-existence of Chapter 4119. It is not itself authority for the broader proposition that no title of the Revised Code governs employee non-competes; that proposition should be confirmed with Ohio counsel, and it is the position in the large majority of states rather than an Ohio peculiarity. What is Ohio-specific, and what this page relies on, is the common-law reformation rule cited separately.
Senate Bill 54 of the 136th General Assembly, Certify specialty residential construction contractor, would amend ORC 4740.99 and enact ORC 4740.18 to create an Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board residential-only certification for a residential heating, ventilating, and air conditioning contractor, residential refrigeration contractor, residential electrical contractor, residential plumbing contractor, or residential hydronics contractor, issued to an individual associated with a residential contracting company and conditioned on liability insurance of not less than $250,000. Its current version is As Introduced, referred to the Senate Workforce Development Committee, with no votes taken.
Ohio Legislature, Senate Bill 54 (136th General Assembly). Checked 2026-09-07.
Introduced bills frequently do not become law. This is cited as pending legislative risk to the residential gap, not as a change in current requirements.
On reconsideration in Acordia of Ohio, L.L.C. v. Fishel, 133 Ohio St.3d 356, 2012-Ohio-4648, decided October 11, 2012, the Supreme Court of Ohio reasserted that in accordance with R.C. 1701.82(A)(3) all assets and property, including employment contracts and agreements, and every interest in the assets and property of each constituent entity transfer through operation of law to the resulting company postmerger, and that R.C. 1705.39 confers the same vestments where a limited liability company is involved. The court held that the L.L.C. may enforce the noncompete agreements as if it had stepped into the shoes of the original contracting companies, provided the noncompete agreements are reasonable under the circumstances, corrected as erroneous the earlier statement that the agreements must contain successors and assigns language, reversed the court of appeals and remanded so the trial court could determine the reasonableness of the agreements. The court emphasized that the decision is limited to noncompete agreements in the context of a merger and that nothing in either opinion should be construed as addressing the effect of a merger on any other company contracts. The opinion quotes Raimonde v. Van Vlerah, 42 Ohio St.2d 21, 325 N.E.2d 544 (1975), paragraph one of the syllabus, that a covenant not to compete which imposes unreasonable restrictions upon an employee will be enforced to the extent necessary to protect an employer's legitimate interests, and paragraph two, that such a covenant is reasonable if the restraint is no greater than is required for the protection of the employer, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public.
Supreme Court of Ohio. Checked 2026-09-07.
Read from the court's slip opinion. The reconsideration decision is reported at 133 Ohio St.3d 356; 133 Ohio St.3d 345, 2012-Ohio-2297 is the earlier Acordia I decision that this one corrects, and citations to 345 for the holding relied on here are to the wrong opinion. No Ohio decision cited here addresses whether an asset purchaser may enforce a predecessor's employee covenants, which is why the page treats that as an open drafting question rather than a settled rule.
Page last reviewed 2026-09-07.
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