Before you sign your money away…💸

Aside from of course your due diligence to check for well reviewed contractors / IDs, here are 3 points and one 🚩 that you must look out for before you engage any firm to renovate your home!

1. 👀Site Visit

Did they offer to visit your place with you to understand your needs or just threw you a quote? It is always a good idea to meet up your potential ID/ contractor in person to suss them out. Pay attention to how knowledgeable they are about what can/cannot be done for your situation. Whether they can articulate & recommend ideas based on their experience for issues you want solved.

Request a visit to a renovation site of one of their projects (can be ongoing ones) to check their workmanship. Spot any potential problems.

2. Are they experienced? 🧐

Especially if you’re intending to do something different, like sourcing your lighting and bathroom fixtures etc from Taobao, extended table from kitchen island, arches, unique feature walls, smart home setup. Your ID / contractor needs to have prior experience unless you are okay to be the guinea pig. Our contractor advised us to get aluminium/ stainless steel material for our bathroom vanity and clearly had experience working with lights/fixtures from Taobao. For an almost 💯 Taobao home, this is essential.

3. Do they really understand what you want? 🤔

After your meeting or if you prepped a brief, did they really understand what you want? Check your itemized quotes and compare between different firms. Some may have items left out vs others. Get them to explain to you line by line. The more detail oriented they are, the less likely for need for many variation orders along the way which can easily blow your budget!

Finally, for HDB owners, it is your responsibility to engage Renovation contractors in this directory and if you engage a firm not in this list, and say a leak happens to the unit below you caused by your reno. During investigation if HDB finds out that your contractor is not listed here, you will not only have to pay to fix up the damages but an additional heavy penalty as well.

The contractors in this directory are trained on all the regulations on what’s allowed and not for HDB flats. You are also able to see if they have had any prior violations.

So if your contractor is not in this list or your ID is not able to provide you proof that the contractor engaged are HDB certified, it’s a big red flag 🚩. Our experience is some dodge this question, saying they cannot confirm, some tell you long stories, but it’s really a clear yes/no question.

We know some home owners are okay with this, but for us it was a non-negotiable. Some owners are not even aware to check this. 👀

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💬 What are your tips to narrow down your ID/ contractor?

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