7 Things to Put in Writing Before Any Home Repair Work Begins in India

The contractor seems trustworthy. He quotes a fair price, shakes hands, and says he will start Monday. In India, most home repair work still runs on exactly this, a conversation, a handshake, and a shared assumption that things will work out. They often do not. Chanakya wrote in the Arthashastra that a transaction without documentation is a transaction waiting to become a quarrel. The seven things below are not legal formalities. They are the specific terms that, when missing, cause the specific fights that follow nearly every home repair gone wrong.

"Bathroom renovation" means one thing to you and three different things to three different contractors. The written scope should name every task: waterproofing the walls before tiling, replacing the flush valve, grouting with a specific colour, disposing of debris. Anything not on the list is outside the contract. If the contractor resists this level of detail, that resistance is itself information.





"Good quality tiles" is not a specification. Write the brand, the series name, the size, the finish, and the quantity in square feet. Do the same for cement grade, pipe diameter, paint brand and sheen level, and any fitting. A contractor who substitutes a cheaper material after the fact can only be held to what the paper says. If the paper says nothing, he substituted nothing.


A lump sum paid upfront is the single most common way home repair money disappears. Structure payment in stages tied to verifiable milestones: a percentage on start, a percentage when the rough work is inspected and approved, the balance only on completion and your sign-off. Write the rupee amount for each stage, not percentages that can be argued over later. Include what happens if a milestone is not met, does the next payment wait?



"Two weeks" is not a completion date. "Work begins on 3 November 2026 and is complete by 17 November 2026" is one. A penalty clause does not need to be punishing, even a modest daily deduction for overrun concentrates attention. Without it, your deadline competes with every other job the contractor is running simultaneously, and yours will lose.

Two arrangements exist: the contractor buys and bills you, or you buy directly and hand over to the contractor. Each has a logic. The first is convenient; the second gives you price control and eliminates the markup that often sits between the contractor's purchase price and what he invoices you. Whichever you choose, the agreement should say it, and receipts for all materials should come to you regardless. In a dispute, receipts establish what was actually purchased.

This sounds minor until workers arrive at 7 a.m. in a housing society with a noise restriction, or disappear for four days without notice. Write the hours, say, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and a notice requirement for any day the team will not show. If you live in a cooperative housing society, include the society's own rules on working hours and debris disposal so the contractor cannot claim he did not know.

A tile that cracks three months after grouting, a pipe joint that weeps six weeks after the plumber left, these are workmanship defects, not bad luck. Write a warranty period: six months is standard for most finishing work, twelve for waterproofing. Write what it covers: the contractor returns and fixes it at no charge. Write how a defect is reported and how many days the contractor has to respond. Without this, every post-completion problem becomes a fresh negotiation.

Seven written terms take less than an hour to draft and can be written on plain paper, signed by both parties, with a copy held by each. No lawyer is required for basic repair work. What is required is the willingness to have the slightly uncomfortable conversation before the work begins rather than the deeply uncomfortable one after it goes wrong. The paper does not prevent every dispute. It just makes most of them unnecessary.