Newbie.. Need A Little Help

[GreenMachine89]

Hey, my names Adam and I'm new to the forum. I'm 20yrs old and attending college. Lawncare is more of a hobbie to me than a job and lawncare is my second business venture. My first is in the industry of welding and steel machine maintanence. I started doing lawncare last summer and it went pretty well. I live on 15acres so I fortunately my father already had all the lawn equipment I'd need to make some money with. Well enough about me and on to my questions..

I didn't take out a business license or anything like that when I started last summer and I am wondering if its illegal in my state of Michigan for me to do that? I just place advertisment all over the place throughout a few surrounding cities and when the clients called, I set the appointments, loaded my gear with my brother and off we went. I've heard from a few people say that I need to be licensed and insured to do this type of work, but do I really need to be licensed and insured to cut lawn, weed wack, edge, and spread a little mulch if the people want it? I am licensed and insured for my other business, but I'm just a small time college student making making extra money by doing this. I understand that I may have to be licensed for tax reasons (greedy gov.) but I'm just like the local kid down the block getting paid to cut the neighbors lawn, just that I cut a few lawns a day in a few different cities. Does that kid have to be licensed and insured? No. Do I or better yet should I? Any help is appreciated.

[droptine]

you should get both. You can get a DBA from your city hall. In oakland co it was $15 or so. and for insurnce it will cover you butt if you have it then if you don;t. you might want to talk to your welding insurence guy and tell him what you want to do. you may be able to just add it to what you have now.

good luck

[GreenMachine89]

I was thinking about just going to get a DBA, I got my DBA for my welding business in Ann Arbor for $10. As for insurance, my truck is in my name and insured by me and all the equipment is in my dads name and insured by him. Do you think this will cause any problems or should I be ok? Also as far as commercial jobs go, do I need certain paperwork and licenses or could my DBA suffice? Thanks

[ALLPro Landscaping]

You definitely want to be insured, So what who insures the equipment or your truck. Its your BUT you wanna insure, it may seem like no big deal, yeah just cutting a lawn, so what, well if that blade hits a rock and that chunk of rock hits a little boy walking down the street, then what, or something that happens more times then none, you hit that rock and their goes the neighbors 80,000.00 mircades benze sitting in the drive, again then what, do you have any idea how much it will cost you to repair, perfect example, I know some one who was doing demo work for a city hall, he sent his workers to go cut an iron railing, ok no big deal, well the sparks from the demo saw hit the mayors car, he turned around and said thank god im insured. And besides these days people will sue you for anything and everything. also if you are required to get a license, besides your DBA I believe all counties require you to have one, if you are required to have a license and you don't the customer has no obligation to pay you, at least here in ny. Just because you are licensed doesn't mean you pay tax, that's where your federal employer id number or FEIN and your tax id number comes in. Well again at least in new york. Check your local laws and regulations, And remember, protect your BUT to the fullest, you don't know whats gonna happen tomorrow or the following day. Good Luck