Checking out a Goodyear contractor before paying a deposit

Bare Goodyear backyard before a pool build, checking the contractor before paying a deposit

Goodyear has grown fast, and a lot of its newer houses came with bare backyards. Bare backyards attract pool builders, pavers, pergola crews and solar salespeople, and most of them are fine. A few take a deposit and then stop answering the phone.

You can do most of the first-pass checking yourself in an evening. This piece walks through that, and then explains where private investigators fit in, which is usually when the job is big, the story doesn't add up, or the money has already gone.

Start with the Registrar of Contractors

In Arizona, contractors are licensed by the Registrar of Contractors (ROC). Its contractor search lets you look someone up by their six-digit license number or by name, and filter by city, classification and status. If a contractor gives you a five-digit number, try it with a leading zero. The ROC says license numbers are six digits and the zero counts.

Things to look at while you're there:

Whether the license is active, and whether the classification matches the work. A license for one trade doesn't cover another.
Whether the name on the license matches the name on your contract and the truck.
Complaint history. According to the ROC's FAQ, closed complaints stay visible on the website for two years from when the case closed. Older history needs a public records request, which the ROC says takes roughly 7 to 30 days.

The ROC also publishes a list of people convicted of contracting without a license or administratively found to have done so. It's worth thirty seconds.

Then look past the license

A clean ROC page tells you the license is in order. It doesn't tell you whether the company owner had a previous business that folded mid-job, or whether there are judgments against them from unpaid suppliers.

Some of that you can check yourself. Maricopa County court records are searchable, and you can look up both the business name and the owner's name. Try spelling variations and the owner's middle initial, because a single search under one spelling misses a lot.

Search the business entity too. If the company was formed three months ago but claims "20 years in the Valley," ask about the gap. There might be a perfectly good answer, like a rebrand or a partner buyout. There might not.

Where a private investigator earns the fee

For a $3,000 patio job, you probably don't need anyone. For a large pool, a full remodel or a contract where a big deposit is due before any work starts, it can be worth paying a licensed private investigator to do a proper background check on the company and its principals.

A private investigator can usually go further than a homeowner, because they have access to investigative databases and know how to connect an owner to past businesses, prior addresses and other names. They can pull civil and criminal court records across counties, not just Maricopa, which matters when a contractor recently arrived from somewhere else. They can also tell you what they found and what they didn't, which is just as useful.

What they can't do is get into the contractor's bank records or credit file without the legal grounds to do so. Anyone who promises otherwise is a reason to keep looking.

If the money is already gone

This is the more common call. A Goodyear homeowner paid a deposit in the spring, a crew showed up once, and now it's autumn. The ROC has a complaint process for licensed contractors, and that should be one of your first stops. If you end up suing, you'll need to serve the contractor, and that's when a vanished business owner becomes a real problem.

A private investigator can help locate the owner's current address and any assets you could realistically collect against, so you and your lawyer can decide whether a lawsuit is worth it. Locating someone is often quicker than people expect. Collecting is the hard part.

Check the private investigator too

It would be a bit rich to tell you to check contractors and not mention this. Private investigators in Arizona are licensed by the Department of Public Safety, and you can verify a license through the DPS Public Services Portal. DPS says a photocopy of an ID card isn't proof the license is current. Every private investigator listed on Served & Found in Arizona is a member of the Arizona Association of Licensed Private Investigators, and our guide on verifying an Arizona private investigator license walks through the DPS lookup.

You can browse private investigators in Goodyear, or see all our listings on the Goodyear page.

The cheapest check is still the ROC search. Run it before the contractor leaves your driveway, and write the license number on the contract.

See the board: everyone in Goodyear · private investigators only.