Fencing
Red flags when hiring a contractor
What are the warning signs of a bad contractor?
A deposit that covers most of the job, no written scope, pressure to decide today, no mention of permits, and vagueness about who will actually be on site. Any one is worth a question; several together is an answer.
The deposit is too big
Money up front for materials is normal — the contractor is buying your cedar before they've been paid for it.
A deposit that covers most of the job is a different thing. It moves the risk onto you before any work exists, and it's the common thread in the stories that end badly.
Nothing is written down
If the scope lives in a conversation, there is no shared version of what was agreed. Every disagreement afterward becomes a memory contest.
A written scope protects both sides equally, which is why a contractor who resists one is telling you something.
The price expires today
Urgency is a sales technique, not a construction constraint. Material prices don't change by Friday.
A number that's only good if you sign now is designed to prevent you comparing it to anything.
Permits never come up
For a fence it may genuinely not apply. For a patio cover or a room conversion, silence on permits means either they don't know or they're planning to skip it.
You inherit that. It surfaces at resale, years later, as your problem.
Nobody can tell you who's building it
Ask who's on site and whether they work together regularly. Vagueness here predicts most of what goes wrong later — because the person making promises and the person doing the work have no connection to each other.
Nothing on this list is about price. That's the point.