Contractor & business verification · public records
Know who you’re building with.
dig before you sign.
Groundcheck pulls license standing, enforcement actions, court judgments, liens, safety records, and entity status on any company or contractor in any U.S. state. One search. One sourced report. A clear verdict in under 90 seconds. Every line cites the agency it came from.
Public records onlyEntity reportsFCRA-cleanPatent-pendingEvery line sourced
6
Classes of public record
5
Verdict outcomes
1
Sourced report
<90s
Median time to verdict
— Run a GroundcheckPublic records nationwide · all 50 states
Secure · TLS verified · business not contacted
Free verdict before you payNo subscription requiredRefund if record inaccurateBusiness is never contacted
• Verdict: CLEAR · Boulder, CO·• Verdict: CONDITIONAL · Austin, TX·• Entity active · 7 yr · Salt Lake City, UT·• Verdict: HOLD · Mesa, AZ·• License current · no actions · Portland, OR·• Verdict: ESCALATE · Tampa, FL·• Safety record · clean 5 yr · Reno, NV·• Verdict: BLOCK · phoenix flagged · Sacramento, CA·• Verdict: CLEAR · Boulder, CO·• Verdict: CONDITIONAL · Austin, TX·• Entity active · 7 yr · Salt Lake City, UT·• Verdict: HOLD · Mesa, AZ·• License current · no actions · Portland, OR·• Verdict: ESCALATE · Tampa, FL·• Safety record · clean 5 yr · Reno, NV·• Verdict: BLOCK · phoenix flagged · Sacramento, CA·
— Built into EarthMove
Continuous ground-truth verification.
Groundcheck automatically cross-checks each contractor and hauler against external data, historical behavior, and on-the-ground signals before they ever see a job. It’s continuous ground-truth verification built into earthmove.io.
ii. Why this exists
— Why this exists
The record was always public. Nobody could read it.
Two years ago, someone in our founder’s family lost $14,000 to a contractor whose expired license, prior complaints, and standing court judgment were all matters of public record — and invisible to anyone without the time, money, and know-how to dig through a half-dozen state, county, and municipal systems scattered across jurisdictions that don’t talk to each other.
Groundcheck collapses that search into one report. Every line cites the agency that issued it. We don’t generate opinions about people; we surface what regulators already published about a business.
— To vet one contractor today, an American homeowner must
Identify which state and municipality have jurisdiction over the work
Look up the contractor in the correct licensing authority — which varies by state, trade, and project value
Cross-reference disciplinary actions across every regulatory board the contractor touches
Search the state attorney general’s consumer-protection enforcement record
Pull county-level civil judgments and mechanic’s liens
Reconcile complaint history scattered across BBB, court dockets, and review platforms
In practice almost no one gets past step two.
$12.5B
Reported losses to fraud in 2024 — a record high, up 25% year over year. The FTC notes the real figure is much higher; only reported incidents are captured.
Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network, 2024
2.6M
Fraud reports filed by Americans in 2024. Home-improvement contractor issues rank among the top consumer complaint categories nationally.
Source: FTC · Consumer Federation of America
50
State licensing regimes a contractor may touch. No federal authority. No unified public registry. The closest thing — NASCLA’s accredited exam — covers only 17 states.
Source: NASCLA · industry reference
$1.7k–5k
What the incumbent enterprise verification services charge per year. They take weeks. We take 90 seconds.
Industry reference · ISNetworld pricing
iii. What’s checked
— What’s checked
Six classes of public record. One verdict.
Every report runs the same checks. Where a category has nothing on file, you see a verified clear— not an empty field. We report the standing; the issuing agency is the authority.
01
License & disciplinary standing
Current license status, expirations, and any disciplinary action, suspension, or revocation recorded by the issuing state board or municipal authority.
State & municipal boards
02
Regulatory enforcement
Formal enforcement actions, cease-and-desist orders, and consumer-protection settlements issued by state agencies and attorneys general against the entity.
Agency final orders
03
Court judgments & liens
Civil judgments where the company is a defendant, mechanic's liens, and federal civil filings. Repeat patterns in the same jurisdiction surface as a pattern, not a footnote.
Federal · state · county courts
04
Safety record
Workplace-safety citation history, with willful and repeat citations flagged distinctly: the class of finding that signals systemic risk rather than a one-off.
OSHA establishment data
05
Entity status & phoenix patterns
Secretary-of-State standing (active, delinquent, forfeited, dissolved) and our patent-pending detection of phoenix patterns: a dissolved entity with judgments re-forming under a new name at the same address.
Patent-pending · SOS filings
06
Cross-source consistency
We reconcile name, address, principal, and phone across every source. Inconsistencies between a company's filings and how it presents to the public are themselves a signal.
Multi-source reconciliation
iv. The verdict
— The verdict model
A clearance decision you can act on.
A number tells you nothing about what to do next. Groundcheck resolves every report into one of five decisions — calibrated to severity and recency of findings, in plain language.
Clear → Proceed
No adverse public record.
License current, entity in good standing.
Conditional → Proceed with terms
Minor or resolved findings.
Verify scope, confirm coverage, get it in writing.
Hold → Get answers first
Open items to ask about.
Warrants a direct question before any deposit changes hands.
Escalate → Dig deeper
Serious or recent findings.
Run a full report and consider alternatives.
Block → Walk away
Active revocation or phoenix.
Active revocation, forfeited entity still soliciting, or a documented phoenix pattern.
v. The report
— The report
One report. Every line sourced.
Illustrative sample
No other tool shows you the structure of the report before you pay. We do. Hover any field to see which agency, registry, or court it came from.
earthmove.io/trust/report/SGE-4882a91
Illustrative sample
SG
Summit Grade Excavation LLC Conditional
DBA Summit Grade · Denver, CO · entity since 2017 · compiled 71s ago
PDFShareNotes
Entity & registration
In good standing
SOS statusActive & currentCO Sec. of State · 2 min ago
Hover any value above — every line names its source.
vi. How it works
— How it works
From name to verdict in three steps.
Works for any company in any U.S. state. Each step gives you something useful before you decide to go deeper. No subscription, no automatic billing.
01 — Enter
A company, license, or address.
One field is enough. Add a city or license number to disambiguate. We show how many entities match before you commit.
Free · $0 charge until you unlock
02 — Cross-reference
We reconcile six record classes.
Licensing & disciplinary, regulatory enforcement, court judgments and liens, safety record, entity standing, cross-source consistency — into one verdict.
Median under 90s · public records only
03 — Decide
Read the verdict. Then act.
Free preview shows the clearance decision and shape of findings. Unlock for specifics — every line cites agency, registry, court, and date pulled.
Unlock or skip · refund if inaccurate
vii. Scope
Scope
Built to verify a business.
Groundcheck reports on companies, LLCs, and contractors across all 50 U.S. states. We verify entities, not individuals. That boundary is deliberate: business-entity records fall outside the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which is what lets this be fast, public, and honest.
Not a consumer reporting agency · Not an FCRA consumer report · Entity verification only
What it is for
✓Hiring a contractor for your home or project
✓Vetting a subcontractor before a job
✓Qualifying a supplier or trade partner
✓Pre-bid due diligence and comparing bids
✓Confirming standing before a deposit clears
What it is NOT for
—Employment background checks on an individual
—Tenant screening decisions
—Credit, insurance, or licensing eligibility
—Any FCRA-regulated decision about a person
—Anything targeting a private individual’s records
Need to screen a person? Use an FCRA-compliant provider built for it.
viii. Principle
— The principle
We don’t accuse. We cite.
Groundcheck never characterizes a company in inflammatory terms. We report the action the agency took, in the agency’s own words, with a link back to the source. That is the difference between an opinion you can be sued for and a public record you’re protected in republishing.
If a company believes a cited record is inaccurate, there’s a correction channel on every report — the accuracy procedure that keeps the platform fair and defensible.
You = republisher of public enforcement. Protected. Not the publisher of an allegation.
Never“This operation is not trustworthy.”
Always“License revoked by the issuing board, Jan 2024 (Order 12345); the company’s website is soliciting work as of this report.”
Never“This contractor will take your money.”
Always“Three unsatisfied civil judgments in the same county, 2022–2024. Source and case numbers cited.”
ix. Mission
— Mission
Built to protect people. Built to feed them too.
Earth Pro Connect LLC, the company behind Groundcheck, has committed to providing 1.5 million meals through its partnership with Feeding America®to support neighbors facing food insecurity. Keeping the public verification tier free is part of that commitment — every person who runs a Groundcheck helps us get there.
*$1 helps provide at least 10 meals secured by Feeding America on behalf of local partner food banks.
x. Pricing
— Pricing
Free to look. Pay only to go deeper.
The public verification tier is free in all 50 states and stays free. Paid tiers exist for professionals who run Groundcheck daily: GCs, suppliers, procurement teams, and owner-developers.
— Free
Free search
$0/ no account required
Clearance verdict on any company. No account, no card on file, no automatic upgrade.
The definitive verification. 40+ sources, seven fraud-pattern detectors, AI-compiled risk report — every line sourced, every report court-ready.
40+ sources including court records, OSHA, and BBB
7 advanced fraud pattern detectors
Phoenix-LLC and shell company detection
Cross-contractor entity resolution
AI-compiled risk report with Opus
Full chain-of-custody audit trail
Downloadable PDF report
— Or subscribe — applies to Pro & Premium
Most chosen by contractors
— Pro
Pro
$99.99/ month
For general contractors and trades vetting counterparties every week.
10 Deep Dive searches per month (120 per year)
Unlimited free verifications & verdict checks
Court, lien, and safety detail unlocked
Phoenix-pattern detection
Monitoring & change alerts on saved entities
Court-ready PDF export
— Premium
Premium
$100/ month
For teams and owner-developers vetting vendors across a whole portfolio — not one job at a time.
Everything in Pro, at higher volume — 150 searches per month, deep-dive investigations included
Portfolio monitoring across vendors — every contractor and supplier you work with, tracked in one place, re-verified automatically as new public records post
Watch + alerts — get notified the moment a monitored vendor’s license status, BBB standing, or public court record changes, so a problem surfaces before your next draw, not after
Deep Dive + Forensic report access — full investigation depth on any entity, including phoenix-pattern and multi-entity cross-referencing
Team seats & shared report history — your whole office works from one verified record; no paying twice to check the same sub
Priority support — front-of-line response while a deal is live
Pro is for the contractor checking the subs on this job. Premium is for the builder, developer, or office managing dozens of vendor relationships at once — where the risk isn’t one bad hire, it’s one bad record you didn’t catch across thirty active ones. Monitoring runs continuously, so verification isn’t a one-time check at signing; it’s an ongoing watch on everyone you’ve already trusted.
xi. FAQ
— FAQ
Common questions, direct answers.
If something here isn’t clear, our team replies within an hour during business hours. No bots, no scripts.
No. Groundcheck doesn’t contact, notify, or share your search with the business. Public records are public; reading them is not a notifiable event. We don’t sell your search history or run any “someone viewed your profile” feature.
No. Groundcheck verifies business entities (companies, LLCs, contractors) using public records. It’s not a consumer report and doesn’t run FCRA-regulated checks on individuals. To screen a person for employment or housing, use a provider built and licensed for that.
Every report carries a correction channel. A business that believes a cited public record is inaccurate can flag it; we re-check against the source and update our reflection of it. We report what the agency published. If the agency record changes, ours does too.
Yes. Groundcheck compiles publicly available business records and attributes each finding to the issuing agency or court. Because reports cover entities rather than individuals, they fall outside the FCRA. We’re upfront about that boundary; it’s what makes the product useful and defensible.
Yes. A clean record is an asset. Claim your entity, confirm the public record is accurate, and surface your standing to homeowners and GCs who check you, without the four-figure annual fee the enterprise services charge.
Standing and registry data are pulled live or near-live at report time, and each line shows when it was checked. Slower-moving records are cached and refreshed on a schedule tuned to how often that record class changes.
76 more questions answered in our knowledge base: how to verify a roofing contractor, what does a contractor license lookup show, signs of a bad contractor, contractor red flags, Groundcheck vs Angi, and more.
One company name. Under two minutes. Every state, every record class. Most of the time it confirms what you hoped. The rest of the time, that is exactly why you ran it.
Free verdictNo subscriptionRefund if inaccurateBusiness is never contacted