Cal. BPC § 2497.5

This is the official text of Cal. BPC § 2497.5, part of California’s Business and Professions Code — regulates business practices and professional/occupational licensing - contractors, doctors, cosmetologists, real estate agents, and dozens of other licensed professions.

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Official statutory text

(a) The board may request the administrative law judge, under his or her proposed decision in resolution of a disciplinary proceeding before the board, to direct any licensee found guilty of unprofessional conduct to pay to the board a sum not to exceed the actual and reasonable costs of the investigation and prosecution of the case.

(b) The costs to be assessed shall be fixed by the administrative law judge and shall not be increased by the board unless the board does not adopt a proposed decision and in making its own decision finds grounds for increasing the costs to be assessed, not to exceed the actual and reasonable costs of the investigation and prosecution of the case.

(c) When the payment directed in the board’s order for payment of costs is not made by the licensee, the board may enforce the order for payment by bringing an action in any appropriate court. This right of enforcement shall be in addition to any other rights the board may have as to any licensee directed to pay costs.

(d) In any judicial action for the recovery of costs, proof of the board’s decision shall be conclusive proof of the validity of the order of payment and the terms for payment.

(e) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the board shall not renew or reinstate the license of any licensee who has failed to pay all of the costs ordered under this section.

(2) Notwithstanding paragraph (1), the board may, in its discretion, conditionally renew or reinstate for a maximum of one year the license of any licensee who demonstrates financial hardship and who enters into a formal agreement with the board to reimburse the board within that one-year period for those unpaid costs.

(f) All costs recovered under this section shall be deposited in the Board of Podiatric Medicine Fund as a reimbursement in either the fiscal year in which the costs are actually recovered or the previous fiscal year, as the board may direct.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.