Fraud Buys Five Years' Probation. Only One Thing in BAR's Schedule Buys Outright Revocation.
The short version. People assume the relationship between a serious violation and losing the business is short. In California it is written down, and it is not. The Bureau of Automotive Repair's own Guidelines for Disciplinary Orders and Terms of Probation (revised June 2021) recommends, for conduct constituting fraud, revocation stayed with five years' probation. The only outright, unstayed revocation in the schedule is for fraudulent smog certification.
A stayed revocation is a revocation that does not take effect while the licensee complies with probation. It is a leash, not an exit.
The schedule, by code section
| Code section | Conduct | Recommended order |
|---|---|---|
| BPC § 9884.7(a)(4) | Conduct constituting fraud | 5 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.7(a)(5) | Conduct constituting gross negligence | 5 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.6 | Unlicensed activity | 5 years' probation |
| BPC § 17500 | False or misleading statements | 5 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.7(a)(1) | False or misleading statements by the dealer | 3 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.8 | Failure to use a proper invoice | 3 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.9 | Failure to provide a written estimate | 3 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.11 | Failure to retain records | 3 years' probation |
| CCR § 3351.5 | Auto body shop equipment requirements | 3 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.7(a)(2) | Having a customer sign an incomplete work order | 2 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.7(a)(3) | Failure to give the customer a copy of a document | 2 years' probation |
| BPC § 9884.10 | Failure to return replaced parts | 2 years' probation |
| HSC § 44072.10(c) | Fraudulent certification or inspection | Revocation, not stayed |
Every row above except the last is invalidation or revocation with a stay, served as probation.
Four things that schedule tells you
Paperwork is a three-year offence. Not returning a customer's old parts is two years; not writing an estimate is three. These are the violations a shop is most likely to commit by drift rather than intent, and they sit on the same ladder as fraud, a few rungs down.
Equipment is enforceable too. CCR § 3351.5, the auto body shop equipment requirement, carries three years. A shop that lets its equipment fall below the standard is not committing a technical infraction with no consequence attached.
Smog is treated differently from everything else. The one unstayed revocation in the schedule is a smog certification offence under the Health and Safety Code, not the Business and Professions Code. California treats a false smog certificate as a different category of wrong from a false repair invoice.
Probation is not passive. The standard terms include cost recovery, in BAR's words: "Respondent shall pay to the Bureau its costs of investigation and enforcement in the amount of $______." And reporting: "Respondent shall report either by personal appearance or in writing as determined by BAR on a schedule set by BAR, but no more frequently than once each calendar quarter." Five years of quarterly reporting and paying for the investigation that caught you is a materially different outcome from a fine.
The sentence that stops this being a rulebook
BAR says of its own schedule:
BAR recognizes that mitigating or aggravating circumstances...may necessitate departure from these recommended orders and terms of probation.
These are recommendations to an administrative law judge, not outcomes. "BAR revokes for fraud" is wrong twice: the guideline for fraud is revocation stayed, and the guideline does not decide the case. If you are looking at a real disciplinary record, read the actual order, not the schedule.
The database behind it, which is the more useful thing
California publishes enforcement actions in a searchable form at bar.ca.gov/enforcement, filterable by action type (accusations, disciplinary actions, citations, unlicensed citations), by licence type including Automotive Repair Dealer, and by date range. Results carry licence type, licence number, business name, owner, city, action and effective date.
The page carries its own caveat, which anyone building a dataset from it needs to reproduce: information for the three most recent calendar months may not be available. A count taken today understates the recent past by design.
What we did not check
Whether the guidelines have been revised since June 2021: we read the revision date printed on the document we retrieved and state it, and did not check for a later edition.
How often administrative law judges follow the schedule: that is an empirical question about outcomes, and answering it means reading orders rather than guidelines. We have not done it and this page makes no claim about it.
Whether any of this reaches collision repair specifically: BAR licenses Automotive Repair Dealers, which covers far more than collision. The equipment section, CCR § 3351.5, is auto-body specific; the rest is not.
Sources
- California Bureau of Automotive Repair, Guidelines for Disciplinary Orders and Terms of Probation, revised June 2021, read on 18 August 2026 from bar.ca.gov. Every recommended order and both quotations above are from that document.
- bar.ca.gov/enforcement, the searchable enforcement database and its own currency caveat.
- Body shop licensing, states compared
- Nevada publishes all 353 of its licensed body shops
- How to choose a body shop
General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.
Where this fits
Each link says what it is for. We add one only when a reader on this page has a real reason to need that page next.
- The Fourteen States That License Body Shops, Compared: What a Licence Actually Proves (whether your state licenses collision repair at all)
- Nevada Publishes All 353 of Its Licensed Body Shops, and Not One Is Flagged Class A (the other state that publishes its roster in full)