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San Diego real estate library
San Diego Real Estate - Types of Contractors
A general contractor is the chief contractor you have to hire
for a foremost renovation project. The general contractor
though, has other subcontractors that he oversees for the
renovation of your home. The repair and maintenance contractors
you need are very different from the general contractor.
Most of the time the General Contractor does not provide the
labor to build the house. The laborers come from the
subcontractors or the trades. This may include carpenters for
roughens, excavators, flooring, painting, concrete sub, plumber,
electrician, roofer, and the finish carpenter. The general
contractor hires the subcontractors and holds their contracts.
Holding the contract means that they are working for him, they
are under contract to him and he pays them directly. When you
hire a general contractor you only have a contract with him not
all the subs. The general contractor marks up the
subcontractor's fee a certain percentage of the construction
amount.
For this fee the contractor does all the organization and
scheduling of the subs. He also pays, provides supervision of
the construction, provides dumpsters, port-a-john, insurance and
other miscellaneous things having to do with the construction
project. The contractors make money by charging for labor and by
marking up the materials. The general contractor is referred to
the generalist and the subs are the specialist. Whenever you
need just a specific thing fixed in your home you would always
hire a specialist. A specialist would be for an example a
plumber or electrician. When hiring someone for maintenance task
some people just hire a guy with a magnet advertising on the
side of his truck but in reality he is not licensed at all. This
could be people like gutter cleaners, painters or lawn care.
Usually using these types do work out but you must be careful
because you do not have the legal protection as with using a
licensed contractor. It's just better to use common sense and
keep yourself protected by going with someone who is licensed.
It's ordinarily easy to tell the unlicensed contractors or scam
artist or possibly someone who is just trying to get in your
home. Use wisdom and do your homework to avoid the following
pitfalls.
1. Unlicensed contractors often go door-to-door arguing that
they "just finished a job down the street and we're in the
neighborhood and noticed your roof needs patching."
2. They may hurry you and twist their words stating, "If you act
now, you'll get a special price."
3. Unlicensed contractors either "forget" to pull construction
permits or they ask you to do it for them. If you do this, you
are assuming liability for the project as well as the
contractor's mistakes.
4. Some states require contractors to list their license numbers
on their vehicles, their estimates and their advertising. If a
contractor has not done that, this is generally a bad sign.
5. If you see a license number in an ad, and it has a different
number of letters, numerals and digits than all the other
licenses, this probably means it is a bogus license number.
6. Be suspicious if a contractor provides only a PO box or cell
number. That may mean he does not have credibility in the
community and could skip town when people start to complain.
7. Unlicensed contractors frequently ask for a lot of money up
front if not the whole amount. Consider this a red flag and try
not to pay any money in advance. If you must, keep the amount to
a minimum.
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