How do I check a contractor is legitimate?

Start with the registration

This is the one that costs you nothing and rules out the most.

Rhode Island requires contractors and most subcontractors working on buildings to be registered with the state board, and no town will issue a building permit to someone who is not — the number goes on the permit. That is the mechanism that makes it worth checking: it is not a badge somebody prints, it is a record, and the record is public.

So ask for the number. Ask every bidder, in the same words, and ask this company for it too. Then look it up yourself rather than accepting a screenshot: check that the name matches the name on the paperwork you are being asked to sign, and check the status.

Anyone who is reluctant to give you a number, who gives you one that does not match the business name, or who tells you the job is too small to need one, has told you something useful about themselves. The board also sets requirements around insurance and training before anyone can register, and those requirements move, so the current version of them lives on the board's own site rather than on a page like this one.

Then the certificate of insurance

The second document, and the one most often produced as a photocopy from a van.

What to ask for instead: a certificate sent to you by the agent or broker directly, with your name on it as certificate holder. That is a routine request, it costs the contractor nothing, and it means you are looking at something current rather than at a piece of paper that has been in a folder for two years.

Look for two things on it. General liability, which is about damage to your property. And workers' compensation for anyone who will be on your property — because if a worker is hurt on your job and there is no comp behind them, the exposure has a way of finding the owner. If a contractor uses subcontractors, the same question applies to them.

Then check the dates, because certificates expire, and a job that runs for months can outlive the one you were shown. And ask every other bidder for exactly the same document. What this company's own position is, is a question for the office on (401) 405-8407 — that is the kind of thing that should come from a person in writing, not from a web page.

References that are actually worth having

Asking for references is the right move, and the version most people do is useless because the question is too vague.

Ask for someone whose job looked like yours — the same kind of work, ideally in the same town. A finished kitchen tells you very little about a roof. Then, when you reach them, ask three specific things: did the price hold, did the schedule hold, and did anyone come back to fix what needed fixing. Those three answers tell you more than a page of reviews.

A fourth is worth adding: was there a point where something went wrong, and how was it handled. Every job has one. What you are trying to learn is not whether this contractor is perfect but what they are like on the bad day.

If photographs are offered, look past the staged finish at the parts that are hard to fake — flashing, transitions, how a line runs where two materials meet. Better still, ask to stand in front of one.

Ask every bidder for exactly the same documents, and compare the answers as carefully as the numbers.

Reviews, read properly

Search the company name together with the town rather than the name alone, and when you get there, read the middling reviews rather than the best or the worst.

The five-star ones are frequently written in the glow of a finished room and describe very little. The one-star ones sometimes describe a genuine failure and sometimes describe a dispute about something that was never in the scope. The three-star ones tend to be the most informative, because they describe what the work was actually like with the enthusiasm worn off.

Then read how the company answers a complaint. That is worth more than the rating: a measured reply that engages with the substance tells you something real about how a bad week would go. One ten-minute call with a reference still beats a page of star ratings.

What you should have before any money moves

A written scope with exclusions

What is included and what is not, named. Not a number on a letterhead.

A payment schedule tied to finished work

Payments falling due after something you could stand in front of, with a meaningful amount held back until the end.

A change-order clause

Changes in writing, before the work behind them, with the effect on price and schedule stated.

Terms you have read

How long it runs, what notice ends it, what is owed if you stop part-way, and whether anything renews on its own.

A method of payment that leaves a record

Rather than cash. And ask what a deposit is actually for, and what happens to it if the job does not go ahead.

Who is filing the permit

And in whose name. If you are being asked to pull it yourself, ask why.

If it goes wrong anyway

There is a route, and it has a clock on it.

In Rhode Island complaints against a registered contractor go to the state board, and there is a time limit on filing after the problem, so it is not something to sit on while you hope it resolves. The board investigates and can act against a registration, and in some situations can order a deposit returned — but money damages are a court matter rather than a board one. The board's own site sets out the current process and the window.

Before any of that, though: say it early, to one person, in writing. A surprising number of problems that end up somewhere formal started as something that could have been sorted out in a conversation on the day, and went unsaid because nobody wanted to seem difficult. You are not being difficult. You are the client.

And if lawyers are already involved, that conversation belongs with one of them rather than with a web page.