What does a New York home improvement contract have to include?
Rules verified Ruleset states-ny-2026-08.2NY Gen. Bus. Law art. 36-A, §771 (home improvement contracts)
- No contract produced
Bracketsight does not generate New York contracts. 1 required clause has wording the statute prescribes, and it has not been transcribed.
A paraphrase of prescribed notice text is not a weaker clause — it is a non-compliant contract. The generator fails closed rather than print something that looks official and is not. The clause table below links each one to its statute.
- Unverified wording
The clause language on this page is UNVERIFIED template text awaiting construction attorney review.
Which clauses New York triggers is encoded from the statutes cited below; the exact wording is not yet confirmed against primary sources. Use it as a starting point and have an attorney review the contract you sign.
| Written-contract threshold | $500 |
|---|---|
| Required clause categories | 5 |
| Apply to every contract | 1 |
| Trigger on job facts | 4 |
| License number on the contract | No statewide rule |
| Clauses with untranscribed statutory text | 1 |
| Prohibited terms listed | 3 |
Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(a) — GBL §771(1)(a) requires the contractor's licence number 'if applicable'. New York has no universal state contractor licence, so no statewide display duty exists. Licensing is county or municipal — New York City and several surrounding counties run their own regimes. Check the county or municipality where the work is performed.
Which clauses does New York require, and when?
| Clause | When it applies | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Written contract with required termsUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] This home improvement contract is in writing and legibly sets forth the contractor's name, address, and telephone number, the approximate start and completion dates, a description of the work and materials, and the agreed price, as required by New York General Business Law §771. | When total >= threshold | Gen. Bus. Law §771(1) |
| Mechanic's lien noticeThe statute prescribes this notice word-for-word. Bracketsight does not reproduce it until it has been transcribed from the statute, so no contract is generated for New York. Read the statutory text | When total >= threshold | Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(d) |
| Three-day right to cancelUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] You, the owner, may cancel this home improvement contract until midnight of the third business day after the day you signed it. Cancellation must be in writing and delivered or mailed to the contractor at the address shown in this contract. | Every contract | Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(g); Pers. Prop. Law §428 |
| Deposit escrow or bond noticeUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] New York law requires that any advance payment received under a home improvement contract be deposited into an escrow account in a New York bank within five business days, or that the contractor instead post a bond or contract of indemnity guaranteeing the return or proper application of the payment. The deposit may only be withdrawn as the work progresses in accordance with the payment schedule. | When downpayment > 0 | Lien Law §71-a(4); Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(e) |
| Progress payment scheduleUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] The payment schedule in this contract bears a reasonable relationship to the work performed and the materials and equipment delivered, including any down payment, as New York law requires. | When downpayment > 0 | Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(d) |
Getting the words right is only half of it
Prescribed wording arrives with rules about how it appears on the page. 1 of New York’s 5 clause categories carry them, and the ruleset records each one in the statute’s own terms even though nothing on this site can set a per-clause type size yet. A 12-point boldface notice printed at body size fails the statute as surely as a paraphrase does, so these sit behind the transcription problem as a second blocker — and they are the reason transcribing the words would not, on its own, produce a usable New York contract.
Mechanic's lien notice — Gen. Bus. Law §771(1)(d)
Required on the page: boldface.
GBL §771(1)(d) requires the notice in 'clear and conspicuous bold face type'. The statute does not state a minimum point size; 'clear and conspicuous' is the standard.
Substance the prescribed text covers, for transcription review only — NOT a substitute for the wording: an unpaid contractor, subcontractor or materialman may have a valid claim known as a mechanic's lien; such a lien may be discharged; payment of the agreed price before the lien is filed may invalidate it; the owner may contact an attorney.
The same job facts select 5 of 5 clauses here
Take a job priced at $12,000 with $3,000 taken up front — a quarter down, which is ordinary practice and is not lawful everywhere. Run those two numbers through New York’s triggers and 5 of the 5 clause categories apply. The table below is the engine’s own output: the reason column is the sentence the generator writes when it selects or skips a clause, not a description of one.
| Clause | At these facts | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Written contract with required terms | Fires | Contract total $12,000.00 meets the state home-improvement threshold of $500.00. |
| Mechanic's lien notice | Fires | Contract total $12,000.00 meets the state home-improvement threshold of $500.00. |
| Three-day right to cancel | Fires | Required in every home-improvement contract. |
| Deposit escrow or bond notice | Fires | Down payment of $3,000.00 requested. |
| Progress payment schedule | Fires | Down payment of $3,000.00 requested. |
2 of those clauses key on the deposit rather than the price, which is where the five states pull apart hardest. In one the deposit only has to exist before an escrow duty attaches to it. In another it is capped at the lesser of a flat sum and a percentage of the price, so on any job above ten thousand dollars the flat sum binds and the percentage never comes into it. In a third the cap is a full third of the price, but only once the price is above five thousand. The same $3,000 is therefore routine in one state and over a ceiling in the next. Change the deposit on the sheet and the clause set changes with it.
One defect you can read straight off the trigger column above: it fires at exactly $500, while the provisions behind these thresholds are written in terms of a price that exceeds the figure rather than one that meets it. A contract at precisely the threshold therefore picks up a clause the statute does not require. It over-includes rather than omits, which is the safe direction, and it is a defect rather than a design choice.
What cannot go in a New York home improvement contract?
- Waiver of the owner's cancellation rights
- Payment schedules with no reasonable relationship to work performed
- Use of escrowed deposits for purposes other than the owner's project
Who actually read the New York statute
New York's rules were read from the state's own site: nysenate.gov returned Gen. Bus. Law §770 and §771 and Lien Law §71-a on the August 2026 pass. New York is also the only blocked state whose block is purely about words. Its one prescribed notice needs bold face type and nothing else — no point size, no separate signed page, no detachable duplicate — so transcription alone would unblock it, where California, Florida and Texas would still need a renderer that can set type. Two cites in this ruleset still point at the wrong subsection and are logged as such.
A citation nobody has opened is not a citation, and a secondary host is a cross-check rather than an authority, so those distinctions are recorded against each New York rule instead of being averaged into a confidence badge. A second kind of gap is logged the same way: in three of the five states the drafted contract-contents clause lists fewer elements than its own section enumerates, which makes a generated contract incomplete rather than misworded. Neither failure is visible from the document itself, which is why the states-ny-2026-08.2 ruleset behind this page keeps its record in the open on sources and in the changelog.
None of this is legal advice, and none of it substitutes for a construction attorney reading the contract you intend to sign. What it can do is tell you which of New York’s 5 clause categories your job’s numbers trigger and exactly where the statute behind each one lives, so the conversation with an attorney starts from the text instead of from a blank page — and so a missing clause is something you find before a customer’s lawyer does.
Why there is no New York contract to build
The generator refuses New York until the prescribed notice text is transcribed from the statute. You can still price the job, and the takeoff sheet and invoice work normally — but the price is an estimate, not a binding quote.