Recovery and Rebuilding

Hiring A Contractor

If you think dealing with your insurance company is nerve-wracking, wait until you have to deal with the building trades. At least the insurance industry is relatively stable and well organized. The contracting field, a haphazard, understaffed industry under the best of circumstances, often becomes a free-for-all in the wake of a disaster.

Florida, which has as much experience as any state with rebuilding from disasters, started something several years ago called the Disaster Contractors Network to attempt to bring some order to the chaos. Douglas Buck, the Florida Homebuilders' Association government liaison who was instrumental in founding the DCN, offers the following handful of simple tips borne of, as he says, "way too much practice."

  • Start when you're ready. If you nab a contractor before prices shoot up, as they typically do after a disaster, great. Otherwise, try not to let yourself get rushed into bad decisions. If you can put up with the cramped temporary quarters, dust, and drip buckets, you're often better off trying to delay construction until the market settles down a bit.
  • Get competitive bids. They say you're always supposed to get three bids. That may be nearly impossible post-disaster, but get at least two bids even if the contractors insist on being paid a couple of hundred dollars each to draw up the estimates. Then just insist that the firm you hire deducts its fee off the final bill.
  • Check with your state's licensing board. It's okay to hire a contractor you've never heard of, but ask to speak to past clients, and in states that license contractors check with the licensing board to confirm that the contractor's license is in good standing; if the company is from out of state, check with the licensing board in its home state.
  • Get a signed contract. The contractor should provide one. If he doesn't have one, your local building department should be able to direct you to where you can find a standard contract for you state. (You may also find it useful to read the standard Florida contract posted by the DCN on its website.) And make sure your contractor fills out the draw schedule. "Anyone who asks you to put 90 percent up front or asks to pay for materials is not a contractor you want to be dealing with," says Buck.
  • The contractor should take care of permitting. Check with your building department to see what permits are required and then make sure you contractor gets them. If your contractor asks you to pick up the permits, that's a bad sign. It might mean he's operating illegally without a license and is afraid of getting caught.