Hiring a General Contractor in Delaware County: Nine Questions, and the Answers That Should Worry You

Why These Nine Questions, and Why Delaware County Specifically

Delaware County runs on a patchwork of 49 municipalities, each with its own permitting office, inspection schedule, and in a handful of townships, its own historic-district or zoning overlay. A contractor licensed and registered to work in Pennsylvania still has to know which office in Media, Upper Darby, or Haverford Township actually issues the permit for a given project, and that local knowledge is exactly where a lot of out-of-county or newly formed companies fall short. Our team has fielded calls from homeowners mid-project with a contractor who simply didn't know the township required a separate zoning sign-off before the building permit could be filed.

The nine questions below aren't abstract due-diligence theater. Each one maps to a specific, documented way a remodeling project in this region goes wrong: an unregistered contractor who disappears after the deposit, a homeowner left holding a mechanics' lien from an unpaid subcontractor, a change order that triples the final bill with no paper trail. Ask all nine before you sign. The answers, and just as importantly, how quickly and specifically they're given, are the real estimate of risk on the project.

Question 1: What's Your HICPA Registration Number, and Can I Verify It?

Pennsylvania's Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act requires any contractor performing home improvement work over $5,000 a year to register with the PA Office of Attorney General. Registration isn't a license in the contractor's-exam sense; it's closer to a standing requirement that creates a public record and a path to the Attorney General's office if a dispute turns into fraud. ProBrothers' own HICPA number is PA195591, and every legitimate Delaware County general contractor should be able to recite theirs from memory, not look it up after the call.

A good answer sounds like: the number stated immediately, unprompted, with an offer to text or email it so you can check it yourself against the PA Attorney General's HICPA registry search.

Worry if you hear: "We're licensed, don't worry about it," a vague reference to "being registered somewhere," or any hesitation about you looking the number up yourself. According to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, operating without HICPA registration above the $5,000 threshold is itself a violation, independent of how the work turns out.

Question 2: Can I See a Certificate of Insurance That Names Me?

A contractor telling you they're "fully insured" is not the same thing as a certificate of insurance that lists you, the homeowner, and your property address as an additional interest. Without that document in hand, you have no way to confirm the policy is active, what it covers, or whether it will actually respond if a subcontractor falls off a roof on your property or a plumber floods your basement.

A good answer sounds like: "I'll have our insurance agent email you the certificate directly, that way you know it's current." ProBrothers carries general liability coverage and sends a current certificate to every homeowner before work starts, specifically so the homeowner isn't relying on our word for it.

Worry if you hear: "I'll dig one up later," or a certificate that's clearly expired, photocopied from a different job, or missing your address. A contractor unwilling to have their insurer confirm coverage directly to you is telling you something about how confident they are in that coverage.

Question 3: Who Pulls the Building Permit, and What Happens If It's Me?

In Delaware County, as across Pennsylvania, the general contractor should be the one pulling the building permit for any structural, electrical, plumbing, or mechanical work, filing it under their own license and registration with the township's code enforcement office. A permit pulled in the homeowner's name instead of the contractor's shifts legal responsibility for code compliance onto you, and it's frequently a sign the contractor isn't actually registered to pull permits in that township, or is trying to dodge inspection scrutiny on the job.

A good answer sounds like: "We pull it under our registration and file the plans ourselves. You don't need to be at the township office at all." On a recent kitchen remodel in Upper Providence Township, our team filed the permit and coordinated both inspections directly with the code enforcement officer. The homeowner never had to make a single call to the township.

Worry if you hear: "It's easier if the permit's in your name," or "we can skip the permit for a job this size." Skipping permits on anything beyond truly cosmetic work routinely surfaces as a problem at resale, when a title company or buyer's inspector flags unpermitted work.

Question 4: What's the Payment Schedule, and How Big Is the Deposit?

HICPA restricts how much a contractor can demand as an upfront deposit before work begins; as a practical benchmark, a deposit in the range of 10% to one-third of the total contract price is standard for a mid-size remodel, with the balance tied to completed, inspected milestones, not to the calendar. A homeowner asked for 50% or more down before a single wall comes down is being asked to fund the project's materials and overhead on trust alone.

A good answer sounds like: a written schedule tying each draw to a specific, verifiable milestone, demo complete, rough-in passed inspection, cabinets installed, final walkthrough, rather than to dates on a calendar.

Worry if you hear: "We need most of it up front to order materials," especially from a contractor who can't name the supplier or show you an actual materials quote. In our experience, legitimate suppliers extend trade accounts to established contractors specifically so a homeowner's deposit doesn't need to cover the entire material order in month one.

Question 5: How Are Change Orders Priced and Approved?

Almost every remodel surfaces at least one surprise, a load-bearing wall where the plans assumed otherwise, outdated wiring behind a wall that needs to come out anyway. The question isn't whether a change order will happen; it's whether there's a defined process for it before it does.

A good answer sounds like: "Any change gets written up with a price and your signature before we proceed. No verbal 'just go ahead and do it' changes." ProBrothers documents every change order in writing, with the added cost itemized, before any additional work begins. That's the difference between a $40,000 kitchen remodel and a $58,000 one with no paper trail explaining why.

Worry if you hear: "We'll just handle it and adjust the final invoice," or any suggestion that change orders get bundled and explained at the end rather than approved as they happen.

Question 6: Who Is Actually On Site Day to Day?

The person who gave you the quote is frequently not the person running the job daily, and that's not automatically a problem, but you should know who it is before you sign. A project supervised remotely by whoever answers the office phone tends to drift on both schedule and quality control.

A good answer sounds like: a specific name, that person's role, and how often the owner personally checks the job. Not just "someone from our crew."

Worry if you hear: vagueness about who's actually supervising, or a company that can't tell you whether the same crew stays on your job start to finish versus rotating between several active sites. ProBrothers assigns one lead carpenter to each project who stays on site through completion, and our clients always have that person's direct cell number.

Question 7: How Do You Handle Lien Waivers From Subcontractors?

Pennsylvania's mechanics' lien law lets an unpaid subcontractor or supplier file a lien against your property, even if you already paid the general contractor in full, if that contractor never paid the sub. A lien waiver is the subcontractor's written acknowledgment that they've been paid for completed work, and collecting one at each payment milestone is how a homeowner avoids inheriting someone else's unpaid invoice.

A good answer sounds like: "We collect a signed lien waiver from every subcontractor and supplier before we release your payment draw, and we'll give you copies." This is standard practice on every ProBrothers project involving subcontracted trades.

Worry if you hear: "We've never had to worry about that," or no clear process at all. A contractor who's never heard the term is a contractor who has probably never had to defend a client from a lien, which is different from it never being a risk.

Question 8: What Warranty Do You Offer, and Is It in Writing?

A verbal "we stand behind our work" is unenforceable the moment the contractor stops returning calls. A written warranty should state a specific term, what it covers (workmanship versus manufacturer defects are usually separate), and who to call if something fails.

A good answer sounds like: a specific written term, commonly one to two years on workmanship for a remodel of this size, with manufacturer warranties on appliances and fixtures passed through separately and documented.

Worry if you hear: "We'll take care of you if anything comes up," with no document to back it. ProBrothers puts workmanship warranty terms directly in the signed contract, not in a conversation that's hard to prove happened eighteen months later.

Question 9: Can I Get Three References From a Project My Size and Type?

A contractor's five-star review count tells you less than three phone numbers for homeowners who had the same scope of project done in the last year or two. A kitchen remodel and a second-story addition draw on different crews, different subcontractor relationships, and different scheduling pressures, so a reference from the wrong project type doesn't tell you much.

A good answer sounds like: three names and numbers provided within a day, for projects genuinely comparable to yours in scope and recency, with an open invitation to call them directly.

Worry if you hear: delayed or recycled references, or references that turn out to be years old. In our experience, a contractor confident in recent work hands references over without hesitation, because they know what the homeowner is going to hear.

The Nine Questions at a Glance

How ProBrothers Answers These Nine Questions

We put our own answers in writing here on purpose, not as a sales pitch, but because every Delaware County homeowner reading this list deserves to hold any contractor, including us, to the same standard. ProBrothers' HICPA number is PA195591, verifiable on the state registry above. We carry general liability coverage and send a certificate naming the homeowner before any contract is signed. We pull every permit ourselves, under our own registration, across the Delaware County townships we work in regularly. Our standard deposit runs 10% to one-third of contract value, with the remainder tied to inspected milestones. Change orders are written, priced, and signed before work proceeds, never bundled into a surprise final invoice. A single lead carpenter is assigned to each project and stays through completion. We collect signed lien waivers from every subcontractor at each payment draw. Our workmanship warranty terms are written into the contract itself. And we provide references from recent, comparable projects on request, no delay.

We've tracked this same process across 150 projects in Delaware County and the surrounding Main Line. It's kept our clients from ever having to learn these nine questions the hard way.

Working Across Delaware County's 49 Municipalities

Part of why these questions matter more here than in a single-municipality market: Delaware County isn't one permitting jurisdiction, it's 49 of them. Each has its own code enforcement office and inspection schedule, and some layer on historic or zoning review beyond Pennsylvania's statewide Uniform Construction Code. A contractor who's only pulled permits in one or two townships may not know that a neighboring township requires a stormwater sign-off for an addition that adds roof area. Or that a historic overlay in parts of Media Borough requires exterior review before a building permit issues.

Pennsylvania's statewide code baseline, administered locally by each township's code office, is published by the PA Department of Labor & Industry's Uniform Construction Code program. Township-level variation sits on top of that baseline, which is exactly why "we're licensed in Pennsylvania" is a necessary answer to these nine questions, but not a sufficient one, on its own, for a project in this county.

Frequently Asked Questions