The Department of Labor and Industry regulates Minnesota's residential building contractors. In fact, a non-Minnesota domiciled company doing business in, say Hugo or White Bear Lake, is still regulated by the Department.
As an administrative agency, it doesn't necessarily incorporate common law into its enforcement analysis. One point of emphasis of late with the Department seems to be contractors' failing to get written change orders to document deviations from the written contracts.
The requirement to get a written change order is statutory. There's no real wiggle room in the statute. But, under case law, there can be an oral modification of the contractor agreement. Oral modifications are most problematic as memories can differ and dispute are more likely to get created.
For both the contractor and the homeowner, easily the best practice is to document changes. It will be a step for contractors to comply with their regulations and for everyone to be on the, both literally and figuratively, same page.
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