Personal Financial Tips

Article by Basil Frankenberg

When your success is riding on exactly how swiftly you can get your space ready, it’s critical to have the appropriate commercial general contractor watching out for your interests. The difficulty is the fact that not all commercial general contractors actually have the skills, business experience and track record they claim they do – and that can wind up pushing your project behind schedule, over budget and making you live year after year with errors or compromises in how good the space looks or how well it functions for you.

Below are a few tips for getting it right!

1. Make sure the contractor’s experience is commercial. General contractors who’ve got residential experience can deliver a valuable sense of style and design to retail and office renovation – as long as they can also show you a solid track record with commercial remodeling projects. You certainly don’t want to pay for a residential builder or remodeler to learn all it takes to be a commercial general contractor. Additionally, you want to make sure the contractor has working experience handling the size of the project that you have.

2. Be sure to ask to see the certificate of insurance. The majority of commercial general contractors will be ready to show you proof of general liability insurance policy, but a general business policy doesn’t always go far enough and might not cover the contractor for liability affecting your property. And what about insurance for the contractor’s personnel – and for the vehicles they drive? This is the reason why you should only use a commercial general contractor who can show you a certificate of insurance for satisfactory commercial coverage from policies that include: workers compensation, vehicle insurance, general liability and builder’s risk.

3. Examine your contractor’s financial footing. Given this economy, it’s getting increasingly more rare to find a commercial general contractor that has been in operation for more than five years. You don’t want to risk picking a contractor who vanishes before finishing your job. One more increasingly common problem on commercial projects is that financially unstable contractors use up-front payments for new jobs to satisfy costs on the last project, often leaving them with no funds to provide material or labor for the new job. That could leave you needing to start from scratch with some other commercial general contractor. And so, don’t be scared about inquiring about references – including a bank reference who can offer some assurance of the company’s financial wellbeing. This is typical business practice and a good contractor should have no problem giving you this reference.

4. Ask to see the contractor’s licenses. Don’t accept a list. Anyone can claim they have a commercial general contractor license – you want to see the real thing. It’s likewise a good idea to verify with your county or city government to be certain your contractor has all the proper licensing and that all those licenses are up-to-date.

5. Check references. Ask past commercial clients tough questions about their experience before, during and after the project. How has the craftsmanship held up? Was the contractor easy to do business with? How well did the contractor fulfill guarantees about expense and delivery time? Don’t stop there! Commercial general contractors hinge on the work of subcontractors – so get a list of them and check out their references thoroughly, too.

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