Independent. No paid placements.Reviewed as findings changeEditorial policyNewsletter
The Warranty RecordAn independent record of home warranty, auto, and other warranty providers — US & Canada

Last reviewed: 17 September 2026

Home › The Library › Oregon home warranty regulation

United States

Oregon backs a home warranty with a bond, not a net-worth test — and treats new construction separately

Oregon Revised Statutes 646A.150 to 646A.172 regulate a service contract provider generally, and carve out a specific, different rule for a "home service agreement" specifically. A second, entirely separate statute governs something that sounds similar but isn't: the warranty a builder offers when it sells you a newly built home.

Most providers prove financial stability. A home service agreement obligor posts a bond instead.

ORS 646A.154 requires an "obligor" — the entity actually obligated to perform under a service contract — to register with Oregon's Department of Consumer and Business Services and demonstrate it can pay claims. The statute's general path is a proof-of-financial-stability filing. But the same section carves out a home service agreement (defined by cross-reference to ORS 731.164) from that general path entirely: instead of filing proof of financial stability, a home service agreement obligor has to file a surety bond, executed to the State of Oregon, in the flat sum of $25,000, issued by a surety company authorized to do business in Oregon. The bond has to stay continuous until canceled — the surety must give the director at least 30 days' written notice before canceling or terminating its liability under it, so a home warranty seller can't simply let coverage silently lapse without the state finding out.

The bond is a fixed dollar figure, not scaled to how much business a provider writes

Unlike Wyoming's 5%-of-gross-consideration deposit or Wisconsin's form-approval model — both covered elsewhere in this Library — Oregon's $25,000 bond for a home service agreement obligor doesn't scale with the size of that obligor's book of Oregon contracts. A company with a handful of Oregon customers and one with tens of thousands both post the same flat $25,000, so the bond's practical protection per contract shrinks as a provider's Oregon business grows. That's a real, checkable difference worth knowing before assuming a bond figure means the same thing in every state that requires one.

A separate statute entirely: the warranty a builder offers on a new home

ORS 701.320 has nothing to do with a purchased home warranty. It requires a contractor who builds or sells a newly built residential structure (not a manufactured dwelling, which the statute exempts) to make a written offer of a warranty against defects in materials and workmanship to the property owner or original purchaser. The owner can accept or refuse that offer. The twist: if the owner refuses the warranty before signing the actual construction contract, the contractor is allowed to withdraw its offer to build at all — refusing the builder's warranty and still expecting the same construction contract isn't something ORS 701.320 guarantees. A related section, ORS 701.605, requires the resulting written warranty agreement, where one is given, to be recorded. Nothing about this new-construction mechanism involves the DCBS bond requirement above; the two statutes regulate two different moments — buying a purchased home warranty on an existing house, and buying a newly built one — and shouldn't be conflated.

Before you rely on either Oregon protection: for a purchased home warranty, confirm the specific provider's $25,000 bond directly with Oregon DCBS rather than assuming registration alone means it's backed — the bond is a fixed figure, not one that grows with the provider's book of business. For new construction, get the builder's warranty offer in writing before you sign the construction contract itself, since refusing it first can change what the builder is willing to build at all.

References

  1. Oregon Revised Statutes § 646A.154 (service contract defined; registration; proof of financial stability; bond; rules; applicability of Insurance Code) — the home service agreement carve-out (cross-referencing ORS 731.164's definition), the $25,000 flat bond requirement, the requirement that the bond be continuous, and the 30-day advance-notice-of-cancellation rule — cross-referenced across Oregon Public Law's and Justia's published copies of the current statute and Oregon DFR's own service-contract licensing guidance describing the same bond figure.
  2. Oregon Revised Statutes § 701.320 (offer of warranty; withdrawal of contract offer) and § 701.605 (recording of written warranty agreement), Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 701 (Construction Contractors and Contracts) — the new-construction warranty-offer mechanism, the manufactured-dwelling exemption, and the contractor's right to withdraw a construction offer if the warranty is refused before the contract is signed — cross-referenced across Oregon Public Law's published statute text and independent Oregon construction-law commentary describing the same mechanism, phrased and searched separately from the ORS 646A.154 research above.
  3. Comparison against this Library's Wyoming service contract regulation page (percentage-of-gross-consideration deposit model) and Wisconsin service contract regulation page (form-approval model) for the contrasting financial-backing approaches.

Related