You are looking for someone for a new bathroom, a dormer or painting work, and the first thing the contractor asks for is your address. That feels early: you don't know the company yet, you don't know whether you will give them the job and you have little appetite for a sales rep at the door. At the same time, it is a reasonable question. The short answer: for a serious quote a tradesperson will eventually need your address, but not at first contact and not every company that responds. In this article you can read why the address matters, what to share at which stage, when a quote without a visit is possible and how to check a company before you invite it over.
Why a contractor wants to know your address
A renovation is not a product from a catalogue. The same job can turn out very differently at two addresses, and a tradesperson who takes their price seriously wants to know what they are getting into. The address tells them, among other things:
- Access and logistics: can a van or skip park in front of the house, is there paid parking, does material have to go up three flights of stairs or can it go up with a hoist, is scaffolding needed?
- Distance and travel time: many tradespeople work in a fixed region. Travel time is part of the price or decides whether they take the job at all.
- The type of home and the year of construction: a 1930s house has different pipes, floors and risks than a 1990s terraced house. In homes built before 1994 a good tradesperson takes asbestos into account.
- Rules that differ per address: whether a dormer or extension is permit-free depends on your municipality's omgevingsplan (local zoning plan) and on whether your home is a listed building or in a protected townscape. The permit check works by address. More on that in When do you need a building permit.
- The condition of what is already there: the subfloor, the existing pipes, the load-bearing structure and damp in the walls only become visible once the tradesperson is inside.
Without an address and without a visit, a tradesperson can therefore give an indicative price at most. With an on-site survey they can give a fixed price that you can hold them to. That difference is exactly where later disputes about extra work come from: the less the tradesperson has seen in advance, the more reservations and provisional sums the quote contains.
What to share at which stage
You don't have to hand over everything at once. A practical order:
- Orientation and first contact: your town or the four digits of your postcode, a clear description of the job, photos, rough measurements and your preferred timing. That lets a tradesperson judge whether the job suits them, whether they work in your region and roughly what the price will be.
- Appointment for a survey: only once you have checked a company and a conversation or chat felt right do you give your full address for a visit. Agree on a specific time and ask who will come.
- Quote and order: the quote and the agreement should state the address of the work. That fixes which job the price, the schedule and the guarantee apply to. A quote without a work address is hard to use in a dispute.
Two things you never need to give for a quote, at any stage: a copy of your ID and your citizen service number (BSN). A contractor does not need them to prepare a price. If a company asks for them anyway, ask what they are for, or look for another tradesperson.
Is it safe to give your address?
Your address is personal data. Under the GDPR a company may only use it for the purpose for which you gave it, here: preparing a quote and carrying out the job. A bona fide company sticks to that. The risks lie mainly with companies that are not bona fide:
- Unsolicited sales: a sales rep at the door, or your details ending up with a lead seller.
- Rogue traders who come by, spot a problem that isn't there and want to be paid in cash straight away. Be extra alert with someone who rings the bell uninvited and wants to start the same day.
- Information about your absence: at first contact, don't mention that the house will be empty for three weeks, and don't hand a key to someone you don't know yet.
So check a company before you give it your address. Look it up in the KvK trade register (the Dutch Chamber of Commerce): does it exist, since when, and does the registered address match what the company says itself? Look at reviews in several places, at a proper website and at a company name on the van and the quote. You will find more signals in 5 tips for choosing the right contractor.
If you don't give them the job in the end, the company may not keep your data longer than necessary. You can ask which data it holds about you and whether it will delete it; the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch Data Protection Authority) explains on its website how to make that request.
A quote without a visit: when does that work?
For smaller jobs that are easy to describe, a tradesperson can sometimes price remotely: painting interior walls with the square metres given, servicing a central heating boiler, a standard roof window in a known type of roof. Good photos help: take overview shots of the room, close-ups of the problem, and put a tape measure or a familiar object next to it for scale. Mention the year your home was built and what you already know about the subfloor or the pipes.
With such a quote, pay attention to the terms. It often says subject to survey or something similar. That is fair, but it means the price can still change once the tradesperson is on site. In that case, ask what they have and have not included, and agree that any deviation is reported before the start and not halfway through the work. How to then compare different quotes fairly is covered in Comparing quotes: how to read a building quote.
For larger renovations, such as a bathroom, an extension or removing a wall, an on-site survey is the norm. A contractor who names a fixed price for that without a visit has either built in a lot of reservations or is underestimating the work.
How VerbouwPro handles this
On VerbouwPro you post your job free of charge. Tradespeople only see the town and the first four digits of your postcode for your job, not your street and house number. Those four digits are enough to tell whether a tradesperson works in your region. A contractor, painter or carpenter who is interested responds, and you see their profile and reviews from previous customers. In the chat you decide yourself when and to whom you give your address, for example only when you make an appointment for a survey.
In short: at first contact, give your town or postcode and a good description with photos, check the company, and only give your full address for an on-site appointment. An ID or BSN has no place in a quote. And make sure the work address is on the final quote, so the agreements on price and guarantee are tied to the right job.