Three contractors walk through the same empty house, take the same photographs, and each sends back one number at the bottom of one page. Most homeowners line the three numbers up, pick the lowest, and transfer a deposit the same week. That is where the job quietly goes wrong. The three numbers almost never cover the same work. The lowest one is usually the one that left the most out, and the difference comes back later as variation orders, priced at a point when you have nothing left to bargain with and a house you cannot move back into.
So the first task is not comparing prices. It is forcing all three quotations to describe the same scope of work, in writing, before you look at any total at all. What follows is the vetting checklist for doing that, plus the questions that tell you whether the company across the table is actually set up to finish what it starts. The few money figures here are third-party Malaysian market ranges published by property portals and suppliers, not a Fatt Interior quotation, and each one is credited where it appears.
Compare the scope, then compare the price
Write your own scope list before you invite anyone to quote, and give every contractor the same list. Room by room: what gets hacked out, what gets patched, what gets tiled and to what height, what gets rewired, how many points and where, which carpentry pieces and at what length, which surfaces get painted, and what stays exactly as it is. It does not need to be a technical drawing. A page of plain sentences is enough to make three quotations comparable.
Then compare like for like. Whole-house renovation in Malaysia is published at RM20 to RM150 per square foot across scale and quality levels by iProperty Malaysia in its 2026 home renovation cost guide, which is a spread wide enough to swallow almost any argument about whether a quotation is cheap. That spread is exactly why the scope list matters more than the total. On top of whatever you settle on, set aside the 10% to 20% contingency share that PropertyGuru Malaysia recommends in its 2026 renovation guide, and keep it in your own account rather than in the contract sum.
How do I check that a renovation contractor is a real business?
Ask to see the company's SSM registration document, then check three names against each other: the name on the SSM paper, the name printed on the quotation, and the name on the bank account you are told to pay into. If those three do not match, stop and ask why before any money moves, because a mismatch is how a deposit ends up in a personal account with no company behind it. Fatt Interior's own SSM registration is 202203238935 and the workshop is at 239, Jln Industri Galla 6, Galla Industrial Park, 70200 Seremban. Ask for the same two things from anyone quoting you, then go one step further: ask to visit the workshop, or to stand on a job that is running right now. A company with machines and a live site will name a time. Ask also for the phone number of the person who will physically be on your site, not only the number of the salesperson who took the enquiry.
How much deposit is reasonable, and when should the rest be paid?
A reasonable schedule takes a booking amount that covers materials being ordered, then releases the rest in stages against work you can stand in front of and inspect. The reason is simple: money paid ahead of work is risk you are carrying, and money still unpaid is the only real influence you have once the site gets busy. Tie every stage to a completed milestone rather than to a calendar date, because a date arrives whether the work did or not. Put the stages in the quotation itself, in the same document as the scope, so there is nothing to renegotiate by message later.
| Stage | Shape to look for | Shape to refuse |
|---|---|---|
| Booking | A modest amount that releases material orders, receipted, against a signed scope | A large slice of the contract sum before anything is measured or ordered |
| After demolition and wet works | Released once hacking, waterproofing and screeding are done and you have seen them | Released on a calendar date whether the wet works happened or not |
| After installation of carpentry and fixtures | Released once pieces are in position, doors close and drawers run | Paid when the pieces leave the workshop, before they reach your unit |
| Final balance | Released after the punch list is closed and signed off | Released on handover day, before anyone has walked the job properly |
| Variation orders | Priced, signed and dated before the work is done | Verbally agreed on site and added to the last invoice |
What should a proper written quotation actually list?
Every line should carry a quantity, a unit and a rate, so that you can multiply it yourself and see where the total comes from. Carpentry is quoted per running foot, tiling and countertops per square foot, and doors, windows and appliances per piece. If your quotation says "kitchen cabinet package" and gives one figure, you cannot tell whether it covers eight running feet or eighteen. For reference, solid plywood cabinets sit at RM330 to RM600 per running foot in AmpQuartz's 2026 Johor kitchen cabinet buyer guide, and quartz surfaces at RM70 to RM190 per square foot on the same publisher's 2026 quartz stone supplier page, both market ranges rather than a price from this workshop. With quantities on the page you can check whether a rate is plausible. Without them you are signing a promise.
Three more things belong in the document. Materials should be written as a specification with a brand-or-equivalent clause, so a substitution has to be equal rather than merely cheaper, and so nobody swaps moisture-resistant plywood for a thinner board without telling you. Any line marked as an allowance is not a price, it is a placeholder, and it needs a quantity and a rate before you sign. And there must be an exclusions list. A quotation without one is not cheaper, it is just vaguer, and vagueness is billed to you later.
What are the warning signs hiding in a cheap quotation?
The cheapest quotation is usually the one with the fewest words, because every sentence a contractor writes is a commitment that costs money to honour. Read the three documents side by side and count the lines, not the ringgit. Where one has a single row and another has fifteen, the single row is not efficiency, it is room to move. Here are the signs that show up most often, and what to ask instead of walking away.
| Warning sign | What to ask instead |
|---|---|
| One lump sum for the whole house | "Can you break this into rooms, with quantities and unit rates per line?" |
| A carpentry package with no running feet stated | "How many running feet is this, and what is the rate per running foot?" |
| An allowance line with no rate and no quantity | "What is the specification you priced, and what happens if I choose above it?" |
| Materials described only as good quality | "Which board type, which thickness, and is there a brand-or-equivalent clause?" |
| No exclusions anywhere on the page | "What is explicitly not included, and who pays for those items?" |
| Payments set against calendar dates | "Can we re-tie each payment to a completed and inspected stage?" |
| Quotation valid for a very short window | "What in your cost changes next week, and can you hold the rate for a month?" |
Who does the work, and who is only coordinating it?
Ask which trades are done in-house and which are subcontracted, and to whom. Neither answer is wrong, but they buy you different things, and you should know which one you are paying for. Fatt Interior is a two-person carpentry workshop: the kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, TV consoles and fitted storage are cut, assembled and installed by the same hands on machines in Seremban, and we coordinate around the tiler, the electrician and the plumber rather than carrying them in-house. That suits a homeowner whose scope is mostly carpentry, or who already has trades they trust. It suits you badly if you want one company answerable for hacking, waterproofing, rewiring, plastering, tiling and carpentry at once, on one contract, with one person sequencing them. In that case hire a firm that carries all those trades and pay for the coordination openly, rather than hiring a carpenter and hoping the rest arranges itself. Either way, ask for the name of the subcontractor on each trade, and ask who is liable if their work damages someone else's finished work.
Who protects the house while the work is running?
Put protection, debris and hours in writing before the first tool arrives, because these are the arguments that sour otherwise decent jobs. Agree who covers existing floors, door frames, sanitary ware and window glass, and agree that the party who damages an existing finish makes it good. Agree who removes debris, how often, and whether disposal is inside the price or billed separately. In a high-rise, ask what your management office needs: a contractor pass for every worker, a renovation deposit, approved working hours, lift padding, and a form describing the works. Someone has to lodge that paperwork, and if the quotation does not say who, it will not be done until the day it blocks the job. See our full renovation coordination page for the order these stages usually run in.
What should I hold back until the punch list is closed?
Hold the final stage payment until every item on a written punch list is fixed and signed off, and never release it on handover day. Walk the whole job slowly with the person in charge, open and close every door and drawer, run every tap, switch every point, and write down each defect with a location and a date beside it. That single sheet, agreed and signed by both sides, is the only real handover document. Ask what the defect period is and what it covers: a period covering workmanship on installed carpentry and its hardware is reasonable, and it should be stated in the quotation rather than promised on the phone. Also ask who answers the phone during that period, and how fast a call turns into a site visit. A contractor who has already been paid in full has very little reason to drive back across the state for one hinge, which is exactly why the last payment exists.
Getting a real quotation
Send the scope list, the unit photos and your floor plan on WhatsApp to +60 13-338 6813, and ask for line items with quantities and rates rather than a single total. For carpentry we quote per running foot and put the exclusions on the same page, and we will tell you plainly when your scope needs a firm that carries all the trades instead. You can see what we build on the kitchen cabinets and wardrobes pages, read about the workshop and the people in it, or check the areas we cover around Seremban.
Every market figure on this page is a published third-party Malaysian range from iProperty Malaysia, PropertyGuru Malaysia or AmpQuartz as noted above, quoted for 2026, and none of them is a Fatt Interior price. The only band this workshop publishes is RM15,000 to RM50,000 for a Seremban kitchen, and even that is a band rather than a quotation, because the number for your house depends on the running feet, the boards and the surfaces you choose.