What Your Contractor's Contract Should Say Before You Sign

Most of the fights I get pulled into after a job goes wrong come down to one thing: nobody wrote it down. The homeowner thought the price included the trim. The contractor thought it didn’t. Both of them are telling the truth.

South Carolina doesn’t give you a standard contract. The state’s residential builder law doesn’t list what a home improvement contract has to say, with one exception for roof jobs paid by insurance, which I’ll get to. (SC Code Title 40, Chapter 59) So it’s on you to make sure the paper covers what matters.

What Goes in It

The state licensing agency and the FTC give the same basic list, and it’s the list I’d use:

• Who: the business name, address and the LLR license or registration number. Look that number up before you sign. (How to check it)
• What: the work and the materials, specific enough that a stranger could tell whether it got done. “Replace roof” is not a scope. Brand, product line, underlayment and flashing are.
• When: an approximate start date and finish date.
• How much: the total price and the payment schedule.

That’s from LLR’s consumer alert and the FTC’s Hiring a Contractor guide. I’d add three more lines: who pulls the permit, what happens if they find rot behind the wall, and how change orders get priced and approved. Those three cause most of the arguments.

Get a signed copy for yourself. LLR says so in plain words, and it’s good advice.

How to Pay

I couldn’t find a South Carolina law that caps a deposit on home improvement work. What the state does say is clear enough. The Department of Consumer Affairs: “Do not pay in-full up front,” and “Only make the final payment after the job is done and you’re satisfied.” (SC Consumer Affairs, December 2024) LLR adds that honest contractors don’t need large sums up front.

The FTC suggests tying payments to finished pieces of work and not paying cash. In practice that looks like a deposit for materials, a payment when the framing or tear-off is done, and the last payment after you’ve walked the job.

The Lien Rule Nobody Mentions

Here’s the one that surprises people. In South Carolina, a subcontractor or supplier who worked on your house can file a mechanic’s lien on it, even if they were hired by your contractor and not by you. (SC Code 29-5-20) The total of those liens can’t exceed what you still owe the contractor. But if a sub sends you written notice and you go ahead and pay the contractor anyway, South Carolina courts have put it bluntly, as a legal summary of the state’s lien law quotes them: that payment “is made at the owner’s peril.” (ALFA International)

Two habits protect you:

1. If you get a notice from a sub or supplier, stop and sort it out before your next payment.
2. Before the final check, ask the contractor and the main subs and suppliers for lien waivers, as the FTC recommends.

One more thing in your favor: a contractor who was required to be licensed and wasn’t can’t file a mechanic’s lien or sue to enforce the contract. (SC Code 40-59-30)

Roofs Paid by Insurance

This is the one spot the state does write the contract for you. If a roofer signs you up for a job that will be paid by your insurance claim, you can cancel before midnight on the fifth business day after you get written notice that the claim was denied. The contract has to say so, in bold, with a cancellation form attached. (SC Code 40-59-25)

Signed at the Kitchen Table

If you sign at your house, the federal Cooling-Off Rule usually gives you until midnight of the third business day to cancel, for sales of $25 or more. Sales needed to meet an emergency are exceptions, and so are repairs you invited the seller to your home to do. (FTC) South Carolina has its own three-day rule for credit sales made at your home. (SC Code 37-2-502) Three days is enough time to read the thing twice, which is the point.

Who Pulls the Permit

The contractor should. State law tells the permit office to turn away anyone who can’t show a license for work that needs one. (SC Code 40-59-280) If a contractor asks you to pull the permit yourself as the owner, the City of Beaufort’s advice is short: “please don’t.” (City of Beaufort FAQ) An owner permit puts the job, and the responsibility for it, in your name.

The Paper Is the Job

A good contract isn’t a sign you don’t trust somebody. It’s how two honest people stay on the same page for six weeks. Every contractor I’d hire has one ready, and none of them mind you reading it slowly.