What Legalities Are Involved When Hiring A Landscaping Contractor

Sometimes, being a homeowner, can be a daunting experience especially if you need something done at your home and this is the first time, you’re getting it done, with nowhere to turn to or no clue where to begin. There can be countless things that anyone who has just bought their new home needs to do to make sure it fits the way they like it and all their preferences that go towards creating a comfortable and unique space for you to lay your feet after a long day’s work.

For those who take pride in their homes, not only is the indoors space important and should be maintained, but the outdoor space may be just as important, if not more. it gives your neighbors the first impression of you, it also harbors lots of unwanted things like pests and weeds if not checked regularly. Were talking about the yard (back or front) or your garden space. 

With something so large, if you take on the mammoth task of sprucing up your back yard and cleaning up your garden space to make it unique and acceptable to not just you but your neighborhood, it could mean a lot of things. Adding, removing, moving, and well, you get the idea. This is not a one-man job, in other words. One will need to hire a professional, to do this for you, especially if you have a large space and only yourself to work on it. 

Having said that, below we have added a few tips and advice on how to hire a professional for this cause i.e. a landscaping professional, especially because there is no better way of running a garden if left to the hands of an amateur. So, let’s dive right in.

Hiring A Landscape Professional for Your Yard

Let us start with some of the most important aspects when looking for a landscaping contractor, the legal stuff.

Liability Insurance and Workman’s Compensation. If you have never heard of these ever being used in this context, think again. This is probably one of the most important things to look out for especially seeing as you are placing a part of your home into the hands of a total stranger. Unless you know them and they were recommended by someone you trust. Even then, it is relevant.

This type of legality relates to cases where any contractor has an accident or injures themselves while working on your property. It will protect you and without this piece of paper, your home and assets could be at risk. It is very possible that you could be held reliable and must compensate for it. 

Another thing they should also carry or have in their possession is liability insurance which will also protect the property of anything that gets broken during the landscaping such as structural damage or tiles on the floors for instance. Things can add up such as lawsuits or hospital costs, you should try and avoid this by making sure they have this paperwork at hand. 

Certification and valid State License. Another piece of legality to ensure high standards of work is the certification or valid state license that needs to be helped by the contractor or his company. Depending on which state you live in this is mandatory and can be the difference between a high and low standard of work. 

Not only that but if they do not have this paperwork, you will not be able to hold them liable for bad work. Or sub-par standards of work. Any homeowner will always lookout for the best prices when looking out for contractors to work on something that will take a whole day and sometimes even a whole week for completion.

This piece of legality ensures that the work is done and is done in full and of a satisfactory level. According to the terms of agreement placed in the initial contract that you signed when you hired them, this license will make sure that they are all met. This means you can file a complaint against the contracting company or contractor for any reason such as he has poor workmanship, refuses to perform well during work, violates any building codes, has left the project unannounced, or even used false advertising and misleading information. 

One way of checking this is here with the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, to find out if they are certified or not. Another thing to add to this point is that even though they may have a license, you may feel the need to check if they are in good standing, and this would typically be done at the relevant states’ business bureau or association of contractors. 

Necessary Permits. The necessity for permits cannot be emphasized. The landscape professional you are looking to hire must know about any local area codes and have all the necessary permits required to do the job. 

Some projects require a city permit, and if not, available it can cause some issues with the city such as fines, and work can be stopped mid-way. This could have repercussions on its own such as prolonging the work and increasing any costs related to it. 

Experience Is Very Important. Now onto the less boring but still very essential item, namely, Experience. This is possible just as important as the legal paperwork discussed in the above two points. For any sort of work, especially when it is your first time, as the homeowner onto which your property is being worked on, asking for references and recommendations about companies is your right. 

If their website has previous work examples and a well laid out site with essential content and any necessary information, it gives a good impression. If they do not have names and contact details of customers, they have worked with, ask them for it and get in touch with those people.

Expert advice from Verdi landscaping is that checking whether their standards and quality of work, meets your expectations is perfectly fine to do. Compare some jobs to yours, and ask yourself if it similar? Sometimes you may even want to visit a job that they have done in the past, to see if it still looks as good as it did years ago.

Sometimes even though the company has been around for a long time, they may not have worked on a similar project such as yours, and as such, you may want to discuss this with the first or look for a different contractor. 

Once all the above has been considered then only should you take on the task of beginning work on this space.