HyreYard
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Verification

How We Vet Professionals

What follows is a list of checks, with the ones we do not yet perform shown as not performed. That is the whole point of the page.

Last updated .

A promise this site is held to. HyreYard will not describe any landscaping company as trusted, vetted, approved, certified or recommended while that is not something we have actually established. If you find one of those words applied to a company anywhere on this site, it is a defect — tell us and we will fix it.

Where we are today

There are no company profiles or ratings on this site yet, because we could not yet support one. The framework below is what we are building — contractor and applicator licence records first, marketing last.

CheckStatus
Licence status checked against state licensing boards Performed today
Company identity and operating history from public records Performed today
Pesticide applicator licences confirmed with state agencies Not yet — shown as not done rather than implied
Insurance certificates confirmed with the carrier Not yet — shown as not done rather than implied
Homeowner reviews collected under a published policy Not yet — shown as not done rather than implied

Ticked rows are the checks we run today. Everything else is open, and a listing on somebody else’s directory closes none of them.

The problem specific to this trade

Landscaping is the home-service category with the weakest licensing floor in the country. In a large number of states there is no landscaper licence to verify at all — the trade is entered with a truck and a trailer — while the same state may separately and strictly license anyone applying pesticides commercially, and sometimes anyone installing irrigation. The result is that a national “licensed and verified” badge in this category is usually verifying something that does not exist.

So we publish the map instead of the badge. Our 50-state table on landscaping licensing by state sets out which states license what, and it is the honest answer to “is this company licensed?” — because in roughly half the country the accurate response is that there is no such licence, and the checks that carry the weight are different ones.

What each check means, precisely

Licence status, checked against state licensing boards

Where a state licenses the work, this means going to the board that issued the licence rather than accepting a number on a business card or a claim on a website. It is a check anyone can repeat, and we would rather you did: the ten-point list on choosing a landscaping company explains how.

What a verified licence proves is narrow and worth stating. That a business met that state’s requirements, in a named category, as at the date we looked. It proves nothing about whether the base under your patio will be four inches deep.

Company identity and operating history from public records

That the trading name corresponds to a real registered entity, and how long it has been operating. This catches the simplest problem in the category — a name on a truck that corresponds to nothing you could ever complain to — and it catches nothing else. It is worth noting that a long operating history is a real signal in landscaping specifically, because the failures in this trade are slow. A base built wrong looks perfect for two winters.

Pesticide applicator licences — not yet done

Anyone applying pesticides commercially generally needs a state licence, in a named category, and it is separate from any contractor licence. We do not yet confirm these with the issuing agency, so we do not claim to. What you can do today is ask for the licence number and category before anything is applied, and check it with your state agency yourself — the detail is on lawn chemicals, licensing and labels.

Insurance certificates — not yet done

General liability and workers’ compensation, confirmed with the carrier rather than from a PDF. We do not do this yet. In this trade it matters more than the licence question: tree work, machinery beside a house and excavation near utilities are the three places where an uninsured contractor becomes your exposure rather than theirs. Ask for a certificate issued directly by the insurer and naming you, not a photocopy.

Homeowner reviews under a published policy — not yet done

We collect no reviews and publish no ratings. Collecting reviews without a published policy on solicitation, verification, moderation and removal produces a number that looks like evidence and is not one, and there are enough of those already.

Verification is not endorsement

Verification is not endorsement, and that distinction is the line the whole page turns on. Everything above establishes facts of record — that an entity exists, that a licence was in force on a date. None of it is a prediction about workmanship, and none of it should be read as a recommendation. When we can introduce you to companies, the introduction will be an introduction, described as one.

What actually protects you in this trade is not a badge on a directory. It is a written scope with the buried work specified in it — base depth, compaction, drainage, plant species and sizes — which is why the base specification and reading a landscaping estimate are the two most useful pages on this site.

Related

Questions

Do you vet landscaping companies?
Partially, and we publish exactly which checks are done and which are not. Today we check licence status against state licensing boards where a licence exists, and company identity and operating history from public records. Pesticide applicator licences confirmed with state agencies, insurance certificates confirmed with carriers, and homeowner reviews collected under a published policy are not done yet, and are shown as not done rather than implied.
Why do you not call companies "trusted"?
Because we have not earned the right to. "Trusted", "vetted", "approved" and "certified" are words that make a promise about verification, and using them ahead of the work would be exactly the behaviour these pages criticise elsewhere. When a check is complete we will name the check rather than reach for the adjective.
What does a verified licence actually prove?
Narrowly, what it says: that a business or individual met a state’s requirements to hold that licence, in that category, as at the date we looked. It proves nothing about the quality of the work, the accuracy of a diagnosis, the depth of a base, the fairness of a price or the terms of a contract. Verification is not endorsement, and we will not let the second ride along on the first.
What if my state does not license landscapers at all?
Then there is no licence to verify, and we say so rather than substituting something that looks like one. Many states license no landscaper as such while separately licensing pesticide applicators and, in some places, irrigation contractors. Our 50-state table on landscaping licensing by state sets out which regime applies where. Where no licence exists, the checks that carry the weight are insurance, a written scope and local references you actually call.
Do companies pay to be listed?
Nobody is listed, so nobody pays to be. We publish no company profiles, ratings or rankings. When introductions are live, any commercial arrangement will be disclosed, and it will not create a ranking, because there will not be one.
What if a company you introduced me to does bad work?
Tell us, and tell the regulator that has jurisdiction — a state contractor board where one licensed the work, or the state pesticide agency where a chemical application is involved. Those are the routes with actual teeth. We would want to know too, and an introduction we made is something we are accountable for having made, even though we do not perform, supervise or warrant anyone’s work.
Is a trade association badge a form of vetting?
Not one we can stand behind. A trade association is a reliable source on the existence and content of its own programmes and nothing else. We did not retrieve accreditation criteria for any industry badge, so this site makes no claim about what any of them require.

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