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Screen your tradespeople. If you hire the wrong people, you’ll waste time and money correcting their mistakes.

Any tradesperson you hire should be licensed, bonded, and have liability insurance. Check with the Better Business Bureau to see if there are any complaints on record. Insist on references for costly projects.

Receive several quotes. The larger the job, the more quotes you need. Insist your prospective tradesperson break down the quote. If a painter quotes $2,000 to paint your rental property, ask how long the work will take and how many others will be working on the job. Ask for a breakdown of expected material costs then, do the math. You might be shocked at the results. Your painter might be charging more per hour than your dentist!

Don’t buy the claim that it’s impossible to break down the quote. Tradespeople who say such a thing are often trying to hide the fact that they’re overcharging. Tradespeople who know how much the total cost will be know how much labour and material will be as well.

For larger jobs, you should enter into a written contract before letting your tradesperson start work. Small claims courts across Canada are inundated with lawsuits involving contractors and landlords who sue each other due to disagreements over oral contracts that could have been avoided had the parties put their expectations in writing. While an oral agreement may be enforceable in a court, it is poor evidence of a contract because the contractual terms are easily forgotten or misinterpreted. A good contract describes the work to be performed in a way that a stranger can read it and have a good sense of the work to be performed. A good contract also anticipates that the work to be performed may have to be changed, and it will provide a procedure for the contractor and landlord to follow to change the work so that neither party is caught off guard. A good first start for a construction contract might be found through forms offered by Self-Counsel Press.

If your tradesperson provides you with a contract to sign, then it obviously should be reviewed carefully. Keep an eye out for unfair contractual terms. For example, an increasingly common practice is for a contractor to insert a clause into the contract providing that a dispute about the contract must be taken to arbitration. Such a clause is intended to take away your right to sue the contractor and to force you to use private arbitration, which is commonly far more expensive than starting a small claims court action. Unfortunately, clauses like these can be difficult to recognize and so if you are involved in a particularly substantial job, consider asking a lawyer to review the contract before signing.