How to choose a villa contractor in Dubai.

The portfolio is the least useful thing you will be shown.

Every firm you meet will show you finished rooms. Photographs prove that a building was completed and photographed; they prove nothing about whether it ran to programme, whether the client was told the truth when something went wrong, or whether the people in those photographs still work there. The three things that actually determine your experience — competence, honesty and continuity — are invisible in a portfolio.

So the useful part of a selection process is not looking. It is asking, and then noticing how the answers arrive. What follows is what we would ask if we were on your side of the table, including the questions that are uncomfortable for us.

Verify the licence before the taste.

Four facts, all checkable, all of which a serious firm will volunteer without being pressed.

The trade licence. Ask for the number and check what the licence actually permits. A firm licensed for interior decoration is not licensed to build you a house, and the discovery arrives at the permit stage, after you have paid.

The contractor classification. In Dubai, contractors are graded by what they may build. The grade determines whether a firm can legally take your project at all, and it is a matter of public record rather than opinion.

Insurance. Professional indemnity and contractors’ all-risks, in force, with certificates. Ask what the cover is for, not merely whether it exists.

Continuity. How long has the firm traded under this licence and this name? Construction is a business people exit and re-enter under new entities, and a decade of continuous trading is itself a filter.

If any of these takes more than a day to produce, you have learned something more useful than the answer.

Ask who actually builds it.

The most consequential question in the whole process, and the one least often asked: how much of my house will your own employees build, and how much will be subcontracted?

There is no shame in subcontracting; the entire market does it. But you are entitled to know where the seams are, because seams are where risk lives. Every handover between firms is a point at which a drawing can be misread, a responsibility disowned and a cost renegotiated. A house built by several companies under one contract behaves very differently from a house built by several companies under separate contracts.

Ask specifically about the joinery, the MEP and the finishing trades. Ask who employs the site foreman. Ask whether the person presenting to you will still be involved at month six, or whether you are meeting a business developer who will hand you to a project manager you have not met.

Ask what went wrong on the last three projects.

This is the question that separates firms, and it is worth asking exactly as written — not “have you had problems,” which invites a denial, but what went wrong on your last three projects, and what did you do about it.

Every villa has a problem. Something is discovered behind a wall, a supplier fails, an approval loops, a decision arrives late. A firm that claims otherwise is either inexperienced or managing you. What you are listening for is whether the answer is specific, whether the client was told promptly, and whether the firm absorbed anything or passed all of it on.

A good answer sounds like a story with a date and a consequence. A poor answer sounds like a philosophy.

Read the quotation as a document, not a number.

Comparing tenders on the bottom line is the standard mistake. Three things matter more.

Provisional sums. A tender full of placeholders is not a price; it is an option to price you later. Total them.

Exclusions. Read them first. The cheaper tender is very often the one that excluded more, and exclusions are not visible in the total.

The programme. Does the tender come with a programme showing what happens when, what decisions are needed from you and by when, and what sits on the critical path? A firm that cannot produce this at tender stage will not produce it later, and you will spend the project asking where things are.

Payment terms tell you how the business runs.

Look at the structure, not the total. Payments should follow work completed and verified — a schedule weighted heavily towards the front is a firm funding its cash flow with your money, which is also a firm you cannot easily leave.

Ask what happens if you want to stop. Ask what is retained at completion and for how long, and what the process is for defects afterwards. A contractor comfortable with a defects period is a contractor expecting to still be trading.

Visit the site, not the showroom.

A showroom is a marketing expense. A live site tells you everything: whether it is tidy, whether the workers have protective equipment, whether materials are stored properly, whether there is a site plan on the wall, and whether the foreman knows what happens next week without checking.

Ask to see a project in progress rather than one that is finished. A firm that will not show you a live site is telling you something about its sites. And if the firm manufactures anything — joinery, in particular — ask to see the factory. Ownership of production is easy to claim and impossible to fake in person.

The questions, in short.

1. Licence number and classification?
2. Insurance in force, with certificates?
3. How long trading under this name?
4. What do your own employees build, and what is subcontracted?
5. Who is my day-to-day contact at month six?
6. What went wrong on your last three projects?
7. What in this price is provisional, and what is excluded?
8. Where is the programme?
9. What are the payment stages tied to?
10. Can I visit a live site and your factory?

Ten questions. Any firm worth appointing will answer all ten in a single meeting, and put the important ones in writing afterwards without being asked.