Now it is common for people to renovate their house. If the property owner is not working in the construction industry, he may not know how to find a “good” construction contractor. The owner can pass by recommendation. Somehow, at some point the recommendation can end up with problems. How to prevent this from happening? Below are some recommendations that can help the owner.
When asking the contractor to quote construction work. Keep in mind that you are looking for few contractors to quote but not too many (around 3-4 contractors). Compare prices of them. If they are quoted at market prices, their prices should not vary much. If one of them is trading much lower than others. Like for example, most of them quoted around *RM100,000, but one of them quotes RM60,000. The owner should NOT choose this contractor. It may have some tricks hidden behind it, like the contractor will earn the difference from the additional cost of the construction works.
When the project is small, the owner will not prepare the contract document for the contractor. Many assignments will be based on verbal discussion. Therefore, you will end up with arguments. As a result, it is recommended that the entire scope of work be noted down and passed on to the contractor for recognition.
Typically the owner will not know how the selective contractor is performing? Therefore, one of the easy ways to track contractor performance is by checking out the contractor’s previous project. Visit the previous project and visually check the work done by the contractor. If possible, have a brief conversation with the previous owner of the project. Ask this owner about the performance of the contractor?
The owner needs to know what the contractor says about the “BAU” (take care of all jobs) of the project. It must be clearly justified avoiding any dispute.