How to vet a handyman in Dubai before letting him into your flat

To be clear first: we are a marketplace, not a contractor. We license nobody and we do not do this checking for you. What follows is what you can check yourself, wherever you found the person.

1. The trade licence, and what is written in it

Companies in the UAE operate under a trade licence, and the licence lists the activities they are permitted to carry out. It is the most informative document in the conversation and the most ignored: people ask "are you licensed?", hear "yes", and stop there.

What matters is not that a licence exists but what is on it. A cleaning licence does not cover electrical work. A licence for "technical services" may not cover air conditioning. The question worth asking is: which activity is the licence for, and does it cover the specific work I am booking?

Someone working for himself rather than through a company is not automatically worse — but it does mean no company carries any formal responsibility toward you. For swapping a mixer tap that is an acceptable risk. For work at the distribution board it is not.

2. Building access

This is the step everyone forgets, and it is the one that most often wastes the day of the appointment. Many Dubai towers and communities require a contractor to be cleared with building management first: a request in advance, a work permit, sometimes insurance. It applies particularly to anything involving water, electricity, or anything beyond your own front door.

A technician who has worked in Dubai for a while knows this and asks about the building himself. One who has never heard the question probably works mostly on villas or on small jobs — which is fine, but you want to learn that beforehand rather than when security declines to send him up.

Do this: before booking, ask your own building management whether a permit is needed for this kind of work. It is one phone call and it saves a day.

3. How to read a review

Reviews in the UAE are the most polluted part of the picture — they are bought, and bought in bulk. A few signals that work better than the average score:

hundred reviews has unhappy customers in there. A profile with nothing below four stars is not flawless work, it is filtering.

you more than a hundred delighted one-liners.

the wait was, what it cost. A bought one deals in adjectives — professional, recommended, excellent service.

purchase, not a flow of customers.

• Read the bad reviews, not the good ones. An honest company with five
• Read the company's replies. A calm, specific answer to a complaint tells
• Look for detail. A real review names things: what was repaired, how long
• Look at the dates. Forty reviews in one week with silence either side is a

4. A price quoted before anyone has seen the job

The money side, with a source behind every figure, is in what a handyman costs in Dubai. Here it is not about money but about good faith.

An exact figure given over the phone with no questions about the job means one of two things: either the person does not intend to hold to it, or he has not understood what you are asking for. The good sign is someone who asks for a photograph and then gives a range, explaining what pushes it to the top of that range.

5. The conversation before the visit

Three questions that cost nothing and reveal a lot:

terms with one person, someone else arrives, and the quality has nothing to do with the reviews you read.

has understood the job.

for the reaction. "I'll come back and look" and "that would be a separate problem" are two different tradespeople.

1. "Will you come yourself, or send someone?" A common story: you agree
2. "What will you bring, and what needs buying?" The answer shows whether he
3. "What happens if it leaks again next week?" Not for the legal guarantee —

6. Payment

Paying the whole amount before any work starts is not normal practice for household repairs in Dubai. An advance for materials is fine, especially if the part is expensive. The full sum up front for work not yet done is a reason to pause.

And ask for an invoice, or at minimum a written message stating the total and what it includes. It takes a minute on WhatsApp and settles most of the arguments that follow.

In short

permit.

On HandyMan the client describes the job, pros send their own offers, and a review can only be left by someone who actually hired that pro through the platform. That does not replace the checks above — it just makes them shorter.

• Ask not "are you licensed" but which activity the licence covers.
• Check with building management in advance whether the contractor needs a
• Read the bad reviews and the replies to them, not the average score.
• An exact price with no questions and no inspection is rarely the final one.
• Full payment up front for work not yet done is rare, and a bad sign.