{ "locale": "en", "access": { "cost": "free", "signupRequired": false, "loginRequired": false, "readCountsAreAnonymous": true, "readingHistoryAssociatedWithReader": false, "note": "Everything here is free to read. There is no account, no signup, and no login. Verifiant counts anonymous reads of each lesson; no reading history is associated with you." }, "notice": "Verifiant is not the State of Arizona, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, or a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. It describes public process and public record, and links to the official sources so you can read them yourself.", "hub": { "slug": "before-you-hire", "locale": "en", "title": "Before You Hire", "summary": "What a public license check is, what it shows, and where its answer stops. Free to read, with nothing to sign up for.", "publicationStatus": "published", "updatedOn": "2026-08-11", "path": "/learn/hubs/before-you-hire" }, "course": { "slug": "checking-a-license-before-you-hire", "locale": "en", "hubSlug": "before-you-hire", "title": "Checking a License Before You Hire", "summary": "A short walk through the public record behind a license check: what the words mean, why the time it was read counts, and how to read one honestly.", "publicationStatus": "published", "updatedOn": "2026-08-10", "path": "/learn/courses/checking-a-license-before-you-hire" }, "module": { "slug": "reading-a-license-check", "locale": "en", "courseSlug": "checking-a-license-before-you-hire", "title": "Reading a License Check", "introduction": "One module, taken in order. You will read what a check is, step through its edges, say the words out loud, and finish by running a real check on a number you actually hold.", "publicationStatus": "published", "updatedOn": "2026-08-08" }, "lesson": { "slug": "what-a-license-check-does-not-show", "locale": "en", "moduleSlug": "reading-a-license-check", "title": "What a License Check Does Not Show", "publicationStatus": "published", "updatedOn": "2026-08-11", "assets": [ { "kind": "summary", "text": "A license check answers one narrow question. It does not rate anyone, it does not predict how a job will go, and it does not say whether a quote is fair. Knowing where the edge of the answer is keeps the answer useful.", "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "slide_deck", "title": "The Edges of a License Check", "frames": [ { "heading": "One narrow question", "lines": [ "A check asks what Arizona publishes for one license number.", "That is the whole question, and the whole answer." ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } }, "layout": "cover" }, { "heading": "It is not a grade", "lines": [ "No ratings, no scores, no rankings live on this site.", "Those words appear here only to say a check is not one." ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } }, "layout": "stat", "stat": "0" }, { "heading": "It is a moment", "lines": [ "Every reading carries the time it was made.", "The record can change the next day. Read it again when it matters." ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } }, "layout": "statement" }, { "heading": "The source is always open", "lines": [ "The Registrar publishes the record itself.", "Every check links it, so you never have to take our word." ], "fact": { "factType": "official_process", "source": { "kind": "official", "label": "Arizona Registrar of Contractors", "url": "https://roc.az.gov/" }, "checkedAt": "2026-08-10" }, "layout": "statement" } ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "reading", "title": "Active, Read Properly", "moments": [ { "kind": "statement", "text": "Active is the easiest word on the result page to over read." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "Start with what it actually establishes: at the moment of the reading, the Registrar published this license as current. The business qualified for its classification, kept its renewals up, and has no discipline interrupting its standing right now." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "Worth knowing", "text": "That is a real thing to know before money moves. It is also a narrow thing to know, and the narrowness is the skill this page teaches." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "A license belongs to a business, almost never to the person in your driveway." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "The friendly estimator, the crew that shows up, the name on the truck, and the name on the license can be four different things at once, with nothing wrong. What the record ties together is the registered business name, the number, and the classification." }, { "kind": "figure", "steps": [ { "label": "The estimator", "detail": "A person with a card." }, { "label": "The crew", "detail": "The people who show up." }, { "label": "The truck", "detail": "A name and a phone number." }, { "label": "The record", "detail": "The one that signs your contract." } ] }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "Ask this out loud", "text": "Which license number will the contract be signed under? If the name on your contract and the name on the record do not line up, ask before anything else happens." }, { "kind": "example", "label": "A name mismatch", "text": "The quote says Desert Sun Exteriors. The record for the number on the quote comes back as DSE Contracting Group, with a matching address and the same qualifying classification. That can be one business wearing a trade name, and one question settles it: ask which registered name will sign the contract, then read that name's record.\n\nSame quote, but the record comes back under a name with no visible connection and a different trade class. Nothing is proven wrong yet, and nothing should be signed yet either." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Active speaks to licensing, not to the work." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "The standing says the business cleared Arizona's legal bar for holding a license. It says nothing about whether last month's roofs leaked, whether the schedule will hold, or whether the number in the quote is right. Two identical Active records can be opposite experiences to hire." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "The floor, not the ceiling", "text": "The record is the floor you insist on, never the ceiling you stop at." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "An Active license is active FOR something." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "The record carries the classification the business qualified under, and the classes describe what kind of work the license may take. When the job in your quote and the classification in the record read like different trades, the license may stand and still not stand for your job." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Time never stops applying." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "The record you read is the record as of the moment it was read. A reading from quote week has aged by signing day, and a signing day reading has aged by the first draw. Checks cost nothing and take a minute; read again at each moment money is about to move." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "Read properly, Active means", "text": "As of this timestamp, Arizona publishes this business as licensed and in standing for this classification. Nothing more, and honestly so." } ], "fact": { "factType": "official_process", "source": { "kind": "official", "label": "Arizona ROC contractor search", "url": "https://azroc.my.site.com/AZRoc/s/contractor-search" }, "checkedAt": "2026-08-10" } }, { "kind": "reading", "title": "Suspended, Revoked, Expired, and Absent", "moments": [ { "kind": "statement", "text": "The heavier words earn a slower read." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "Each one is the end of a different story, and the story is what you actually need. A status is a single word standing in front of a record; this page walks behind the word." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Suspended: standing interrupted, license still alive." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "The roads into a suspension are different enough that the word alone should never settle anything: discipline that followed a complaint, an order the business did not carry out, paperwork or renewals that fell out of date, or the security the law requires behind residential work going out of force. Some of those stories are about how a business treats its customers; some are about how it treats its back office." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "The story is one click away", "text": "The record behind the word names which road it was, with dates, and the result page links straight to it." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Revoked is the strongest sentence the agency writes." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "Where a suspension reads as interrupted, a revocation reads as ended: the Registrar pulled the license entirely." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "What to do with it", "text": "The number on the table is not a license in standing, whatever else is said about it. The signing conversation stops until the record is read closely and understood.", "tone": "strong" }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Expired: the date outworks the word." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "Licenses run on renewal cycles, and a lapse can be a retirement, a back office oversight, or a business partway through renewing. An expiration from last month with a long clean history behind it is a different fact from a license that has sat expired for years. Read the date first, then decide what the word means." }, { "kind": "example", "label": "Two expirations, two meanings", "text": "A license that expired three weeks ago, held for eleven years with no discipline on the record, reads like paperwork in motion. Worth a question, rarely a story.\n\nA license that expired four years ago and was never renewed is a different fact entirely. Whatever the explanation, the work you are pricing today would not be done under a license in standing." }, { "kind": "statement", "text": "Absence is its own reading." }, { "kind": "explain", "text": "When an answer comes from Arizona's posted list of active licenses, absence from that list is not a statement that a license never existed. The list holds active licenses only, on the list's own schedule. A number can be absent because it never existed, because it lapsed long ago, or because its standing changed after the list was posted." }, { "kind": "callout", "label": "Never", "text": "Absence from the active list is never dressed up as nonexistence. The check page names which source answered, every single time.", "tone": "strong" } ], "fact": { "factType": "official_process", "source": { "kind": "official", "label": "Arizona ROC contractor search", "url": "https://azroc.my.site.com/AZRoc/s/contractor-search" }, "checkedAt": "2026-08-10" } }, { "kind": "figure", "title": "The Three Reads", "figure": "steps", "steps": [ { "label": "Read the status", "detail": "The word Arizona published, letter for letter." }, { "label": "Read the time", "detail": "The moment that word was true. A reading is a moment." }, { "label": "Read the record", "detail": "Open the Registrar's own page and read the details behind the word." } ], "caption": "Three reads, one minute. The habit that turns a status into an answer.", "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "flashcards", "title": "The Status Words, Two-sided", "cards": [ { "front": "Active means", "back": "The license stands today. Nothing about the crew, the quote, or how the job will go." }, { "front": "Suspended or revoked means", "back": "The Registrar acted on the license. The record behind the word tells the story, and the result page links it." }, { "front": "Absent from the posted list means", "back": "That list holds active licenses only. Absence from it is not a statement that the license never existed." } ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "quiz", "title": "Check Yourself: The Edges", "questions": [ { "id": "active-now-what", "prompt": "A check comes back Active. What do you now know?", "options": [ { "id": "job", "text": "How the job will turn out" }, { "id": "published", "text": "What Arizona published for that license number at the moment it was read" }, { "id": "quote", "text": "That the quote is fair" } ], "answerOptionId": "published", "explanation": "Active is what public record published at that moment, and the moment is part of the answer. Nothing in a check speaks to workmanship or to how a job will go." }, { "id": "three-weeks", "prompt": "Three weeks later, is that reading still good?", "options": [ { "id": "year", "text": "Yes, a reading lasts a year" }, { "id": "again", "text": "The record can change any day, so run it again when it counts" }, { "id": "ask", "text": "Only if the contractor says nothing changed" } ], "answerOptionId": "again", "explanation": "A reading describes the moment it was made. Running another takes a minute and answers for today." } ], "selfTally": true, "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "talking_points", "points": [ "A check covers licensing, not the quality of the work.", "Nothing in a check is Verifiant's opinion of a contractor.", "A reading from today can be out of date tomorrow. Read it again when it matters.", "Absence from a published list of currently active licenses is not a statement that a license does not exist." ], "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } }, { "kind": "workbook", "title": "The Call Script Sheet", "keyTakeaway": "Ask for the license number before anyone steps on your property. It is public record, and asking is normal.", "activities": [ { "kind": "try_it", "title": "Marisol asks for the number", "body": "Marisol has a roofing quote from a company she found after the storm. The estimator was friendly, the truck looked professional, and the quote is the lowest of the three she collected. Before she signs anything, she calls back and asks one question: which license number will this work be done under?\n\nWrite the exact words Marisol could use, in your own voice.", "writeIns": [ { "prompt": "Her opening line, in your words:", "lines": 3 }, { "prompt": "If the answer is vague, what does she say next?", "lines": 3 } ] }, { "kind": "apply_it", "title": "Your next call", "body": "You have a quote of your own, or you will soon. Write the words you will actually say, then keep this sheet by the phone.", "writeIns": [ { "prompt": "Your opening line:", "lines": 3 }, { "prompt": "The license number they gave you:", "lines": 1 } ], "checklist": [ "I asked for the license number before signing anything.", "I ran the number through a check and read the result.", "I opened the Registrar's own record from the result page.", "I kept this sheet with the quote." ] } ], "takeAction": "Pick one quote you already hold and make the call this week. The check takes a minute and costs nothing.", "fact": { "factType": "general_practice", "source": { "kind": "verifiant_doctrine" } } } ] } }