Have you ever had a bad contractor experience or wished, in hindsight, that you did more due diligence before hiring someone to make repairs, improvements, or even put an entire addition on your home?
We’ve all dealt with the mediocre contractor, who sort of shows up when they say they will, or maybe there was a little misinterpretation as to what the expectations for the finished product would be, or maybe the final bill was higher than you expected. I’m talking about major contractor issues. Below are some thoughts and tips about avoiding bad contractors.
In about 2000 we hired a roofer to replace the roof at our (now infamous) home in Westminster. He did a great job, didn’t charge us more when he found a whole other layer of roof under the one we were replacing and we recommended him to a lot of people. Then my cousin’s husband had an unfortunate accident while working on their roof, and this same roofer said to me that if the homeowners could pay for the materials, he’d have his guys do the labor, at no charge. We were blown away by the generosity and there was even a story in The Gardner News about it. A few years later, we hired the same guy to cap off some chimneys at our house that hadn’t been used in decades, other than to let squirrels in. We paid him about $800, for the 1/2 the job up front, seemed reasonable. Then we never saw him again. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but I was so mad that I drove to his house (bad idea, do not try this yourself). In the end, we learned from a few reputable sources that he had gone down a path of drugs and it was probably best to let it go and move on since we were never going to get anything from him. So, even someone who had previously been trusted–things can go wrong as time passes.
In the past month, I’ve talked with three homeowners who have had extremely bad experiences with contractors. One is suing the contractor mid-project after learning that others have sued them before. Another found out too late that the contractor they hired has dozens of people in the process of filing a class action lawsuit against him and his company. They hired him to put an addition on their home. Unfortunately for them, he got as far as pouring a foundation and dismantling the side of their house, and then disappeared, with a significant amount of their money. The third learned that the contractor they hired used their deposit money toward another job altogether, and no longer had the funds to purchase the materials for their job.
What’s a homeowner to do?
This isn’t intended to be the end-all-be-all solution, or a guarantee that you’ll be in the clear and your project will be problem free––but here’s what I’ll do going forward.
I was recently talking with another realtor and she told me that she reached out to her clients about a month after they purchased a home, and asked them how things were going. Not very good, they said they had a crack in a wall in the basement and the contractor they brought in said it was a major issue, took a large deposit, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. People!–Use your realtor as a resource. Anyone worth their salt will provide recommendations with the caution that you still need to do your own due diligence. I maintain a Recommended Professionals page, but even then–you’ve GOT to do your due diligence.
I’ve always got some project or another going on, and on top of that, I have dozens of clients who are constantly giving me all kinds of feedback on people they hire. Here are a few of my good guys right now–just based on projects I’ve recently done at my house:
All In One & Moore – Gutters
B&B Contracting (Brian Aube) – Roof and windows/skylights
Batallas Electric (Raul Batallas)
RJ Davenport and Sons Paving – Driveway removal and reconstruction, paving
MR Property LLC (Mike Fontaine and Rasool Adkins) – General carpentry and finish work
Be Attentive
Driving by the home of an acquaintance and see a contractor vehicle out front? Call that homeowner and get a timely update on their experience so far with that contractor. Do you have a trusted plumber, but you’re looking for an electrician recommendation? Ask your plumber for one!
Social Media
–Visit local Facebook groups (most towns have them) and your Nextdoor neighborhood and ask for recommendations for the type of job you’re looking to hire for. Be watchful that you’re not choosing someone just because they nominated themselves for the job. Look for someone who is recommended by multiple people, and bonus points if you know the people who made the recommendation.
–Use the search feature within the group to search the name of the person and name of the company to see if they come up that way.
Here are a few local unofficial town pages that you can try:
Discussing Princeton
Wonderful Westminster
Wachu-Chat (Wachusett District area)
General Online Search
I was curious about one of the contractors above that I had heard of an acquaintance having an issue with, so I just searched his name and town in the general search bar in Google. Whoa, lots of rabbit holes to go down.
Unbiased Research Platforms
The Massachusetts Secretary of State Corporations Division has a corporate database that you can search by a person’s name or their entity name. Some bad actors will set up shop under a new corporation name, so be sure to search by their name as well as their entity name.
Check a professional license at the Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure
Trellis.law
If you search a contractor and you see a link to a Trellis Law page, it will show you a preview of court documents (although if you want very in-depth information you have to get a paid account). You will typically see a Trellis page if there’s a lawsuit (or several) regarding the person you did a search on. Hint: If you see something that makes you consider getting a paid Trellis account, maybe don’t hire that person.
Search by name and company in the courts database. Go to masscourts.org
Municipal
Visit the building or inspectional services department in a municipality your potential contractor has done work. Tell them you’re considering hiring this person and are wondering about their track record in that town. They will likely be very careful to not say anything speculative about a contractor, but you can sometimes read the room.
Online Reviews
We all know I love my reviews. When I’m considering hiring a contractor, I look at review platforms where the business owner can’t make edits to their reviews. Some companies also include their reviews on their website–and may have made edits before including on their own site. My Google reviews show on my website, but I can’t edit them, which shows them for what they really are–direct from the consumer.
Search for reviews on your potential contractor here. Keep in mind that in order for someone to get Google reviews, they have to set up their business through Google. Meaning, if you’re dealing with a bad egg through and through, they may not have set up a Google account at all.
Pro tip: If a contractor has one terrible review mixed in with other shining stars reviews, look closer at the person who wrote the review–sometimes that person is the common denominator in all their bad relationships. I’ve seen people who have written 5-8 reviews ever and they are all caustic and potentially damaging to the businesses they write about.
You can also ask your favorite AI tool, but I’m not a fan of that. Although, I do like what it says about me. 🙂
What about the Better Business Bureau?
While I think it’s useful to search their database, they charge businesses (based on number of employees) in order to be accredited. I’ve also seen businesses that are rated A+ that get slammed by multiple people on review sites and local Facebook groups.
