Checking a contractor in fifteen minutes: seven checks and what each yields

The largest transaction of a person's life is usually signed on the basis of three sources: what the sales representative said, how the render looked, and what the lawyer thought of the contract. All three matter, and none of them supplies the basic datum — who this company actually is, and what is recorded about it in the places it does not write itself.

Seven checks follow, in the order worth doing them. All are free except the land registry extract, which carries a fee.

1. The register of licensed contractors

An open state dataset listing every contractor. What it yields: contractor number, date of registration, the branch of registration, the group and classification, and the permitted scope. Search by company number, not by name — similar names are the standard error.

What to check: that the branch is 100 — building. A contractor classified in another branch is not classified for building. What the classification means in practice is explained in the article on contractor classification.

2. The Registrar of Companies

The company dataset supplies: company number, company type, date of incorporation, status (active or not), the registered address, and the year of the last annual return filed.

What to check: that the company is active, and that the last annual return was filed in a plausible year. A company that has not filed for years is not necessarily problematic, but it is a signal that justifies a question.

3. The list of registration-refusing companies

The Ministry of Construction and Housing publishes a list of construction companies refusing registration — companies that have not completed the registration of buyers' rights. It is among the most important data points for a buyer, because it concerns not the building but what happens afterwards: whether the apartment purchased was in fact registered in the buyer's name.

4. A land registry extract

The extract shows who holds the right in the land, and what charges, attachments and notes are registered against it. This is the check that determines whether the security you were offered is worth anything: a caution note helps only if no charge, attachment or superior right was registered before it. See the article on securing a buyer's funds.

5. The Ministry of Construction and Housing information system

The Ministry operates a service for checking the state of land registration, and refers to it in its guide for buyers of a new apartment. It lets a buyer see the project's registration status without waiting for information from the seller.

6. The Sale Law Commissioner

The Commissioner at the Ministry of Construction and Housing is the address for complaints about securing buyers' funds. Two uses: first, to know the address exists before you need it; second, to understand that the seller must report every sale and the security given to the Commissioner within 40 days of signing.

7. The certifications the company itself publishes

Here the check is different: not what is written, but until when. An ISO certificate is a document with a validity date, so ask for the certificate itself rather than a mention of it. See the article on ISO 9001:2015 in a construction company.

What no register will teach you

No register will tell you whether the contractor answers the phone in the second year after handover. That is learned two ways: by speaking to residents in a project the company handed over in the past, and by seeing whether the company is still present in the buildings it finished. Both take time, and both are worth it.

Everything here is a practical guide and not legal advice. Before signing a sale contract, take advice from your own lawyer — not the seller's.

An example: what a check of one company looks like

For Tawfik Zidan Ltd, the figures that emerge from the public registers are: Registrar of Companies — number 512330952, Israeli private company, incorporated 2 June 1996, status active, registered address 9 HaGiv'a Street, Nof HaGalil. Contractors' register — contractor number 19463, registered 29 January 1997, branch 100 building, group C classification 5, unlimited scope, classified 7 April 2013. An ISO 9001:2015 certificate valid until June 2027.

That is exactly the kind of output a check should produce: not an impression, but a list of figures each of which points back to the register it came from. The company's details and project list are on the about page and the projects page.