20 questions to ask before you sign with a guarding company

• 1. What is your operating licence number, and when does it expire? The licence is valid for five years and is renewed only if the conditions still hold (Law 2518/1997, art. 2 §3).
• 2. Is your licence number printed on your offer? The company must show it on its documents (art. 4 §1α, as amended by Law 5187/2025).
• 3. Which work-licence numbers belong to the guards for our site? Every guard needs a personal work licence, category A or B (art. 3).
• 4. Will the guards on our site appear in your monthly staff list to the police? The company reports every month who it employs and where (art. 4).

Documents are checked before signing. “We will send them afterwards” is already an answer.

• 5. Who will the guard or team be, and how stable will it stay? A guard who changes every week never learns the site.
• 6. How will the guard be trained on our site before the first shift? Ask who trains them, and on what.
• 7. If the guard does not show up, how quickly does a replacement arrive? Have the time written into the contract, not just said.

• 8. Which supervisor checks our post, and how often? Ask for a name and a frequency, not “our supervisors”.
• 9. How is a patrol proven? Checkpoints the guard scans show when they passed where.
• 10. Who writes and who approves the written post orders? Without written orders, every guard does something different.

• 11. What does the guard do in the first minutes of an incident, and whom do they alert? The answer should exist in writing in the post orders.
• 12. How soon am I told about an incident, by whom and how? Agree the time and the channel before you need them.
• 13. Who answers the operations desk in the middle of the night? Ask whether it is a person or a voicemail.

At OVIT a real person answers the operations desk, and the guarding is done by local teams.

• 14. What report do I receive, how often, and what does it contain? Ask for a real sample, not a description.
• 15. Can I see patrols and incidents myself, without requesting a report? If the only source is an email, you see only what the company chooses to send.

OVIT gives clients the Guardly platform: patrols, incidents and reports in one live picture.

• 16. How many hours of cover does the offer include, and how does it cover lawful pay for each of them? A 24/7 post is 168 hours a week, or 4.2 full-time positions of 40 hours (Labour Code, art. 189). An offer that cannot show this is rejected.
• 17. Which premiums apply for nights, Sundays and public holidays, and where do they appear in the offer? They should be separate lines, not hidden in a total.
• 18. What civil liability insurance do you hold, for what amount, and will it be written into the contract? Law 2518/1997 does not require it, so only the contract secures it.
• 19. Who handles visitor and camera data, if any? Set out the roles in writing.
• 20. How does the contract end, and how is the handover done with no gap in cover? Notice and post handover should be written down.

For the selection criteria as a whole, see how to choose a security company, and when you are ready, request a proposal for your own site.