Is Roots Finished Basements a legitimate contractor?

How to check any Utah basement contractor in ten minutes

1. Look up the licenceGo to the Utah DOPL licence lookup and search the company name or the licence number. Check that the status is active, that the classification covers residential or general building work, and that there is no disciplinary action. A business card that says licensed is not evidence. The lookup is.
2. Ask for the certificate of insuranceGeneral liability protects the house if something goes wrong. Workers compensation protects the homeowner if a worker is hurt on the property. Ask for the certificate, not a verbal yes, and check the dates.
3. Read the payment scheduleUtah does not cap deposits by statute, so the schedule in the contract is what matters. A reasonable schedule ties each payment to work the homeowner can see. One hundred percent up front is a red flag. Cash only is a red flag.
4. Find the change order clauseEvery basement has one change. The contract should say changes are priced in writing and signed before the work happens. If it does not, the final number is whatever the contractor says it is.
5. Read the agreementWhat is included, what is excluded, how changes are priced and how payment is scheduled. Verbal promises are hard to enforce.
6. Confirm who pulls the permitThe contractor should pull it in the company name. A contractor who asks the homeowner to pull an owner builder permit is shifting liability onto the homeowner.
7. Read every review, including the bad onesLook for reviews that describe a specific project, a timeline and a price, not just a name and five stars. Read the owner responses. Then search the company name with the word complaints.

Where Roots Finished Basements stands on each item

The terms a careful homeowner might push back on

A trust page that only lists strengths is marketing. These are the parts of the Roots agreement that a homeowner should read twice before signing, stated plainly.

• Half the contract is paid before the first wall goes up. The 10 percent scheduling deposit plus the 40 percent commencement draw means 50 percent is paid when work begins. That is on the high side of what some advisors suggest. In exchange the price is fixed and the schedule is set. A homeowner who wants a smaller early draw should ask before signing, not after.
• Cancellation charges scale with how far the job has gone. The agreement charges 25 percent of a cancelled line item before material is ordered and the crew is scheduled, 50 percent once scheduled, 75 percent once material is ordered, and 100 percent once work has begun. Material is not refundable.
• Changes cost an administrative fee. Approved change orders carry a minimum fee of $75 or 10 percent of the change, whichever is greater, plus the cost of the work. That discourages small changes, which is the intent, and the homeowner should know it going in.
• Disputes go to arbitration. The agreement contains a binding arbitration clause, which is common in construction contracts and still worth understanding.
• No cards. Some homeowners want to put a deposit on a card for the protection it offers. Roots takes check, cash, ACH and bank transfer only.

None of those terms is unusual for a licensed contractor, and all of them are in writing, which is the point of this page. A homeowner who does not like one of them should say so at the first conversation.

Who is behind the company

Rhodes Group LLC is based in Salem, Utah and runs two divisions: Roots Finished Basements and Roots Landscaping and Sprinklers. The owner, Noah Evans, spent years renovating and flipping houses before launching the Roots brand, which is why the company describes itself as a new name, not new hands. The same name appears on the DOPL licence record. A small field crew does the in house work and a fixed set of licensed subcontractors handles plumbing, HVAC, electrical, drywall, tile and flooring on every project.

The company also built its own job tracking software, called Roots OS, which schedules crews and inspections, stores signed agreements and change orders, and gives each homeowner a portal with their project and documents. Homeowners mention the communication that comes out of that more than anything else in the reviews.

Red flags Roots tells homeowners to watch for

• A price given before anyone has walked the basement.
• A contractor who suggests skipping the permit or having the homeowner pull it.
• A deposit request with no written contract behind it.
• No licence number on the proposal, the business card or the truck.
• A start date that keeps moving after the deposit is paid.
• Pressure to decide today.

Several of those describe how the contractor scams that homeowners search for actually unfold. The protection is boring: licence, insurance, written contract, payments tied to work.

What happens if there is a problem after the job

Any issue with the work goes to the company in writing, and the agreement sets out how it is handled. Manufacturer defects are the manufacturer's responsibility under the agreement. Utah homeowners who pay a licensed contractor in full under a written contract also have protection from subcontractor liens under the Utah Residence Lien Restriction and Lien Recovery Fund Act, and the Roots agreement tells the homeowner so and offers lien waivers at each draw.