Hiring a tradie is mostly an act of faith. You meet someone for twenty minutes, hand over a bunch of money, and hope they turn up when they said they would and do the work they said they would. Most of the time it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, you’re stuck with a half-finished bathroom and a very long insurance conversation.
You don’t need to be a cynic to vet a tradie properly. You just need to ask the right questions early, before any money changes hands. Here’s what to check.
Check their licence and insurance, not just their website
A licence number on a ute or a website doesn’t prove anything. Licences get cancelled. They expire. Some are held by someone else in the business who isn’t actually doing your job. Every state has a free public register you can search. In New South Wales it’s Service NSW. In Victoria it’s the VBA. In Queensland it’s the QBCC. Type the licence number in and see what comes back. If the name on the licence doesn’t match the person quoting you, ask why.
Public liability insurance is separate. Ask for a certificate of currency. Not “I’ve got insurance, don’t worry about it”, but an actual PDF from the insurer with a policy number and an expiry date. A legitimate tradie will send it within the hour. If they go quiet, that’s your answer.
Look at reviews tied to real jobs
Anyone can collect five-star reviews from their mum and a mate. The question isn’t “do they have good reviews”, it’s “are those reviews tied to verifiable work”. A review that references a specific quote number, a specific suburb, and a specific scope of work is worth ten glowing but vague ones. On Reviewey, every review is linked to a real job between a real customer and a real business, which is the whole point of the platform. If you’re looking at a review that could have been written by anyone about anything, treat it as marketing, not evidence.
Ask for two recent jobs you can drive past
This one sorts the wheat from the chaff in about ninety seconds. Ask for the addresses of two jobs they finished in the last month that you can drive past. Not photos. Not testimonials. Actual addresses. You don’t need to knock on the door. You just need to see the work is real and looks finished. Tradies doing good work are happy to share. The ones who bristle at the question usually have a reason.
Get the quote in writing with a clear scope
A verbal quote is worth nothing when something goes wrong. The written quote should tell you what materials are included, what’s excluded, how variations are priced, the payment schedule, and an indicative start and finish date. If it’s a single line that says “bathroom reno, $24,000”, that isn’t a quote. It’s a number. Push back and ask for detail. Good tradies expect this. The ones who resist are telling you something useful about how the job will go.
Watch how they handle the deposit
Most states cap residential deposits. In New South Wales and Victoria the cap is ten per cent of the contract price for most domestic building work. If a tradie asks for fifty per cent up-front on a job under a few thousand dollars, something is off. Either they’re undercapitalised, or they’re planning to disappear, or they genuinely don’t know the rules, which itself is a warning. A fair deposit covers initial materials and locks in the slot. It isn’t the bulk of the job.
Trust the small signals
Did they turn up on time for the quote? Did they return the call when they said they would? Did they send the paperwork the same day or three reminders later? These aren’t petty things. They’re the exact behaviours you’ll see repeated once the job starts, except with more money and more at stake. Tradies who are organised at the quoting stage tend to be organised on the tools. The ones who are scattered before you’ve paid them anything will not become more organised after.
If the price is much lower than everyone else’s, ask why
Three quotes is the standard advice, and it’s standard because it works. If two tradies quote $18,000 and one quotes $11,000, the cheap one isn’t a hero. They’ve either misunderstood the scope, priced it to win the job and then invoice variations, or they’re cutting corners somewhere that will show up in two years. Ask what’s different about their quote. A good tradie can explain exactly where the savings come from. A dodgy one will wave their hands about “being efficient”.
Vetting a tradie isn’t about being suspicious. It’s about making sure the person you’re about to hand money to can do the work, has the paperwork to back themselves up, and has a track record you can actually verify. Ten minutes of checking up-front saves months of grief later.