How to choose a Vastu consultant: seven questions to ask before paying anyone

I am writing this knowing perfectly well that some readers will use it on me. That is the point. This trade has no licensing body, no register and no barrier to entry, which means the only real protection you have is the quality of the questions you ask before you pay.

1. What will you look at before you tell me anything?

You want to hear about the plan, the directions, the age of the building, what has been altered and when. What you do not want is a remedy offered on the first phone call, before anyone has seen anything. Walk away if they name a fault and a fix in the first five minutes, over the phone, without seeing the property.

2. How much of what you recommend will involve construction?

In ordinary residential work the honest answer is: very little. Structural change should be a last resort, identified as such, and costed separately. Walk away if demolition comes up early and often, or if the recommendation conveniently requires a contractor they happen to know.

3. Will you explain why, or only what?

You should finish a consultation understanding the reasoning, not just holding a list. If someone cannot explain why a change matters, they should not be recommending it.

4. What do you sell besides consultations?

This is the most useful question on the list and the one people are shyest about asking. There is nothing wrong with a consultant who also sells yantras or stones, but you are entitled to know it before the diagnosis, because it tells you which way the incentive points. A diagnosis that always concludes in a purchase from the diagnostician is not a diagnosis.

5. What is outside what you can help with?

Everyone in this field should have a ready answer. Mine is: this work does not treat illness, settle legal disputes or replace financial advice.

6. Do you guarantee a result?

The correct answer is no. Be especially careful with the softer version: a confident description of what will happen to your income, your marriage or your health once the correction is made.

7. What happens after the consultation ends?

You want a written summary and then, largely, silence. A consultation should end. Dependency is a business model in this field, not an accident.

One observation from the records

A meaningful share of the properties I have been called to had already been seen by someone else, and the client had already spent money. When I go back through those notes, the failure is almost never that the previous person got the direction wrong. It is that they never made a diagnosis at all: they arrived with a remedy already in mind and fitted the house to it.

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