The contractor seems trustworthy. He quotes a fair price, shakes hands, and says he will start Monday. In India, most home repair work still runs on exactly this, a conversation, a handshake, and a shared assumption that things will work out. They often do not. Chanakya wrote in the Arthashastra that a transaction without documentation is a transaction waiting to become a quarrel. The seven things below are not legal formalities. They are the specific terms that, when missing, cause the specific fights that follow nearly every home repair gone wrong.
