How to Vet a General Contractor in NC Before You Sign

We are a general contractor telling you how to interrogate general contractors, so take this for what it is: the checklist we would give our own family. The remodeling trade has excellent professionals and genuine hazards, and in a coastal market that surges with storm repair work, the hazards multiply. Ten focused minutes of vetting eliminates most of them.

Check the license, and understand the threshold

In North Carolina, any project costing $40,000 or more legally requires a licensed general contractor. That threshold was raised from $30,000 to $40,000 effective October 2023. Below the threshold, unlicensed operators can work legally, which means the license check matters most on bigger jobs, and the rest of this list matters most on smaller ones.

Verify any license directly with the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors at nclbgc.org. The search is free and takes a minute. Confirm the name on the license matches the company you are hiring, and note the license limitation, which caps the project size the contractor may take on. A business card claiming licensed and insured is not verification. The board's website is.

Demand certificates of insurance, not promises

Two policies protect you: general liability, which covers damage to your property, and workers' compensation, which covers injuries to workers on your project. If a contractor lacks workers' comp and someone is hurt on your property, you can end up in the claim.

Do not accept a verbal yes. Ask for certificates of insurance sent directly from the contractor's insurance agent. Any professional can arrange that in a day, and the ones who hedge are answering your question.

Read how they write, because paper predicts the project

Here is the tell we would weight most heavily: how detailed is the written scope of work? A one-paragraph proposal that says remodel bathroom per discussion, with a big number under it, guarantees arguments later, because nobody agreed on what per discussion means.

A professional scope names materials, allowances, exclusions, who pulls permits, and how changes will be priced and approved in writing. We put a custom written scope in front of every client before we give a firm quote, and we would tell you to demand the same from anyone bidding against us. When all bidders price the same written scope, the lowest number means something. When they do not, it means nothing.

Ask the questions that have checkable answers

• How long have you operated under this business name?
• Who will actually be on site, your crew or subs, and who supervises?
• Can I see two or three recent local projects similar to mine, and speak to those owners?
• What permits will my project need, and who pulls them?
• What are your payment terms?

Write the answers down as you go. Comparing notes across two or three contractors makes the patterns obvious in a way memory never does.

On payment: modest deposits tied to material orders are normal. Large up-front payments are not. North Carolina consumers lose more money to the disappearing-deposit contractor than to any other trade scam, and a payment schedule tied to completed milestones is your defense.

Trust the pattern, not the pitch

No single red flag proves anything, but patterns do. Slow to show insurance, vague on paper, pressure to sign today, cash-only pricing, a different company name on the truck than the contract: any two of those together and you should keep looking.

We built our business on the boring virtues this list rewards: verifiable license, real insurance, and a written custom scope before every firm quote. Put us through the checklist and see. Request a free written estimate at /estimate, and vet us against anyone.