Questions to ask before you hire anyone
Nine questions, and what a poor answer to each one tells you. Asking is the easy half. The value is in knowing which reply should end the conversation.
Before these
Two contractors can both answer well
These questions separate people who have already checked out on paper. The license, the bond and the insurance are public records and come first, because no answer given in a kitchen changes what a licensing board publishes.1
What follows is the other half: how this person runs a job, asked while you still have the only leverage you will ever have, which is that you have not signed anything.
The nine
And the answer that should worry you
What legal name will the contract be in?
A trading name, a nickname, or hesitation. The entity on the contract is the only one you can pursue, and it should match the license without anybody having to explain the difference.
Who is actually on site, and who employs them?
That it depends. Subcontracted crews are normal and not a problem; not knowing whose insurance covers them is. One answer tells you who to call when something is damaged.
Who pulls the permit?
Any version of you not needing one, or of the homeowner pulling it to save time. A contractor who asks the owner to pull a permit is moving liability for the work onto the owner.
What is the start date, and what is the finish date?
A start date with no finish date. Dates that exist only in conversation are the single most common thing missing from the contracts behind these disputes.
What happens if it runs over?
That it will not. Every job runs over sometimes, so the useful answer describes what changes when it does rather than promising it away.
How does a change get priced?
That they will sort it out as they go. A change order is a document with a number on it, agreed before the work happens, and a contractor who does not work that way has told you how the final invoice will arrive.
What does the payment schedule follow?
Dates rather than milestones. Money released against the calendar pays for time; money released against completed stages pays for work.
What is the warranty on the workmanship, and who honours it?
The manufacturer's warranty offered as the answer. Those cover the product. Workmanship is the contractor's own, and it is the one that matters when an installation fails.
Can I have two addresses of work like mine from the last year?
A curated photograph instead. Recent, comparable and local is the request, and reluctance to give it is information even when every reference is excellent.
What you are listening for
A contractor who works from documents will answer in documents
Across all nine, the reply that predicts a smooth job is the one that names a piece of paper: a change order, a schedule, a certificate, a permit. The reply that predicts a dispute is the one that offers reassurance instead. Neither is about honesty. It is about whether this job will produce a record, and a job with no record is one where a disagreement later comes down to whose memory a stranger believes.
Next
The answers only count once they are written down
Every good answer above belongs in the contract, and an answer given aloud and left out of it has not survived. What belongs in a contract is the same nine subjects in the form that binds somebody, and deposits and progress payments is where the money half is settled.2
Disclosures
- 1.Satisfy is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. This page suggests questions to ask before entering a contract. It does not assess any contractor, and it does not state what any answer means for a particular job.
- 2.What a contractor must tell you, who may pull a permit, what a deposit may be, and what warranty is implied by law are set by each state. Nothing on this page states a requirement or a limit, because none of them is the same in any two places.