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Contractor Protection · Free tool

The Contractor Red-Flag Scorecard: 12 questions before you sign

You have a contractor, a contract, and a payment demand in front of you. Answer twelve yes/no questions about them — honestly, including the ones you've been avoiding — and this scorecard gives you a risk read with every flagged item explained. It takes two minutes, and the flags it finds are the ones that show up in the paperwork before the first check is written.

1. Have you personally verified the contractor's license (where your state requires one) and received insurance certificates directly from the agent or carrier?
2. Is there a written contract that describes the scope in real detail — rooms, work, materials — not just a price and a signature line?
3. Is the deposit 20% of the total price or less?
4. Is every payment after the deposit tied to completed, verifiable work — not to dates, “start of” triggers, or whenever he asks?
5. Is the contractor willing to provide lien waivers with each payment?
6. Did you get references you can actually reach — including at least one past project old enough for problems to have surfaced?
7. Will the contractor pull any required permits himself, in his own name?
8. Does the contract require signed change orders before any changed or added work is done?
9. Are you being pressured to sign quickly — a price that expires, a start date that vanishes unless you commit now?
10. Did this contractor first appear at your door uninvited — especially after a storm or a neighborhood-wide event?
11. Has the contractor asked for cash, offered a discount for cash, or asked that payment go to a different name than the one on the contract?
12. Does the contractor have permanent contact information — a physical address and a business entity you found active in your state's registry?
Educational rule-of-thumb tool, not professional advice. This scorecard applies general patterns from contractor disputes to your answers. It is not legal advice, is not tailored to your state, and cannot evaluate the contractor or contract itself — only your answers about them. A low score is not a guarantee, and a high score is not an accusation. Verify anything you intend to rely on, and consult a licensed professional in your state about your specific situation.

This free version shows you the flags. The full Scorecard comes with the fix for every one.

Inside the Contractor Protection Package: the complete Red-Flag Scorecard with the clause to request, the restructure to propose, and the exact words to use for each flag — plus the Safe-Payment Calculator, contract checklist, lien explainer, vetting scripts, and the project-gone-wrong plan.

Get the Contractor Protection Package — $39 Instant download · Yours forever · All sales final

Educational information, not legal advice. Laws and practices vary by state and change over time; verify anything you intend to rely on, and consult a licensed professional in your state for advice about your specific situation.