Key takeaways
- Verify the licence number yourself with the Nevada State Contractors Board — do not take a business card as proof.
- A legitimate contract names the licence number, the scope, the price and the payment schedule.
- Never pay a large deposit up front, and never pay in cash without a receipt.
Most contractor problems are decided before work ever starts — in the ten minutes you spend checking a licence, reading a contract and looking at a payment schedule. Here is how to do all three properly.
1. Verify the licence — yourself
- Ask for the licence number in writing, not just a business card.
- Look it up with the Nevada State Contractors Board and confirm the status is active.
- Check the classification covers the work you are hiring for — a licence for one trade does not cover another.
- Check the licence is in the name of the company you are actually signing a contract with.
- Check the bond and any disciplinary history shown on the record.
Why this matters more than price
An unlicensed contractor is not just cheaper — they are uninsured, unbonded, and you have far less recourse if something goes wrong. If an injury happens on your property or the work fails, that risk lands on you.
2. Confirm insurance
- General liability insurance — ask for a certificate of insurance, not a verbal assurance.
- Workers' compensation coverage for anyone who will be on your property.
- Confirm the certificate names the company you are contracting with, and that the dates are current.
3. Get a written contract
- The contractor's licence number and business name
- A scope of work detailed enough to know what is and is not included
- Materials to be used, and who supplies them
- The total price, and how it is broken down
- The payment schedule tied to milestones, not to dates
- The start date and the estimated completion date
- How change orders are handled and priced
- Who is responsible for permits
- Cleanup and debris removal
- Warranty terms on labour and materials
4. The payment schedule that protects you
- Payments should follow completed work, not a calendar.
- Keep the deposit modest. A large up-front cash payment is the single biggest red flag in this industry.
- Never let payments get ahead of progress — you should always be paying for work that is already done.
- Hold a final payment until the punch list is closed and you have walked the job.
- Get a receipt for every payment, including electronic ones.
Walk away if you hear these
- "We don't need a permit for that."
- "We can start tomorrow, just get us the deposit today."
- "We'll work it out as we go."
- "Cash only."
- Pressure to sign today for a discount that expires.
- No physical business address or no licence number to give you.
5. Questions worth asking every contractor
- Have you done this exact kind of work in this kind of home before?
- Who is my point of contact, and how quickly do you respond?
- Who will actually be on site, and are they your employees or subcontractors?
- What do you expect to find behind the walls, and how would that change the price?
- How do you handle change orders?
- What does your cleanup look like at the end of each day?
- What warranty do you provide?
Two or three bids is reasonable. When you compare them, compare the scopes line by line. The cheapest bid is often the one with the most missing: no texture matching, one coat instead of two, no haul-away, no permit.
What we typically see in Las Vegas homes
Based on our own repair work
What we see on the other side of this, having been called in to fix other people's work:
- The most common failure we are called to correct is work started without a written scope. Almost every dispute traces back to a verbal understanding of what was included.
- Texture and sheen are the two things low bids consistently skip, and the two things that make a finished repair look unfinished.
- A large up-front deposit is the single most reliable predictor of a job that does not get finished. We are called to complete a surprising number of abandoned projects.
- Most of the change-order arguments we inherit come from a scope that said "repair drywall" without saying how much, or to what standard.
A Las Vegas homeowner had paid a substantial deposit to a contractor who completed demolition in a bathroom and then stopped responding, leaving an exposed wall, no waterproofing and a partially removed tub.
Assessed what had been done and what had not, confirmed the framing and plumbing rough-in were sound, then rebuilt properly: new cement backer board, a roll-on waterproofing membrane with every seam and penetration taped and sealed, a new valve and trim, tile set from a dry-laid layout, grout, silicone at all changes of plane, and new paint and trim. The bathroom was finished in eleven working days.
Las Vegas, NV
