RunCabin Blog · For working contractors

Do I need permission to post before-and-after photos of a customer's property?

September 13, 2026 · 7 min read

Short answer: for most exterior work, a quick verbal "mind if I use this on my website?" at the end of the job covers you - but it isn't nothing, and a few situations call for more than a nod. Before-and-after photos are the single most convincing thing you can put on a small-business website, which is exactly why it's worth five minutes to get the asking part right instead of finding out you got it wrong after the photo is already live.

This question comes up constantly for painters, remodelers, landscapers, cleaners, and anyone else whose whole pitch is "look what we did" - and almost nobody teaches it, so most owners either never ask and hope, or assume they need a lawyer and skip the photos entirely. Neither is right. Here's the honest middle.

Why this isn't the same question as "can a photographer shoot in public"

You may have heard that anyone can photograph anything visible from a public place, no permission needed. That rule is about photographers on sidewalks and in parks - it doesn't map cleanly onto a contractor who was let inside someone's house, garage, or fenced backyard to do a job. You were on private property because the owner let you in to work, not because you have a general right to be there with a camera. That distinction is the whole reason this is worth thinking about instead of assuming the public-photography rule covers you.

There's also no single federal law that either requires or blocks a tradesperson from posting a photo of a customer's property for marketing. What exists instead is a patchwork: state privacy laws, state "right of publicity" statutes (mostly aimed at using someone's identifiable image or name to sell something), and plain old contract law - if your work agreement or a homeowner's association rule says otherwise, that governs. None of that adds up to "always fine" or "always need a signed release." It adds up to: use judgment, and default to asking.

The practical risk scale, low to high

Not every photo carries the same weight. Thinking about it this way makes the "do I need to ask" question much easier to answer on the spot:

• Lowest risk: your own work, no identifying details. A close-up of a repainted fence, a finished tile floor, a new deck with no house number or street sign in frame. Nobody could identify whose home it is just from the shot.
• Medium risk: a recognizable exterior. A full-front shot of the house after a re-roof or a repaint. Neighbors and anyone who's been to the property could identify it. Lower risk than an interior, still worth a quick heads-up.
• Higher risk: anything inside the home. Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms - the layout, the family's belongings, sometimes mail or photos on a wall are visible in the background. This is where a casual after-the-fact "hope that's fine" turns into an actual problem, because interiors reveal far more about a family's life than an exterior ever does.
• Highest risk: anyone's face, especially a child's, or anything with a name and address on it. Mail on the counter, a school schedule on the fridge, a kid playing in the background of a backyard shot. This is the category to be strict about regardless of how the rest of the shoot went.

The higher you go on that list, the more a verbal okay stops being enough and the more a written yes - even just a text reply - is worth having.

The ten-second habit that solves almost all of this

You don't need a contract clause or a lawyer's release form for a typical residential job. You need one sentence, said at the moment you're already standing there with your phone out:

"Hey, mind if I grab a couple photos of this for my website? I'll leave your address and anything with your name on it out of it."

Say that, and you've done three things at once: asked plainly, told them exactly what you will and won't show, and reminded them you're already thinking about their privacy - which is usually the actual worry underneath a hesitant "I guess so." Most homeowners say yes immediately, because they understand a small business needs a portfolio and they'd want the same courtesy in reverse.

For anything higher up the risk scale - a full interior, a shoot with kids or pets clearly in frame, a job for an HOA board or a property manager who might have their own rules - get the yes in a form you can point back to later. A text is enough:

"Thanks again for today - okay if I post a couple of the kitchen photos on my website and Google page? Happy to leave out anything you'd rather I not use."

A "yes, go ahead" reply to that text is a real record. You don't need a notarized release for a $400 repaint job. You need something you can show yourself, and if it ever came up, show the customer, that they said okay.

When to get something more formal

A handful of situations are worth a slightly heavier touch - a printed one-paragraph release the customer initials, kept with your job file:

• High-end or high-visibility properties, where the owner has a real privacy interest - custom estates, properties near public figures, anything the customer describes as sensitive.
• Commercial and property-management work, where the property owner isn't the person who let you in, and a manager saying "sure" on-site may not have the authority to bind the actual owner.
• Any job where the customer specifically asked about privacy before you even raised it. If they bring it up first, that's a strong signal to put the agreement in writing rather than relying on a verbal exchange from weeks earlier.
• Photos you plan to use in paid ads, not just your own website. Paid placement is a different use than a portfolio page, and it's worth naming that difference when you ask.

None of this needs to be complicated. A single paragraph - "I agree that [Business Name] may use photos of the completed work at my property for its website, social media, and advertising" with a date and a signature line - covers the situations above without turning every job into paperwork.

What to blur or crop out, every time

Independent of whether you asked, a few things simply don't belong in a before-and-after photo and should come out before it goes anywhere near your website:

• The house number. It adds nothing to a photo of your work and turns a portfolio shot into a specific address anyone can look up.
• License plates on any car in frame, whether it's the customer's or a neighbor's.
• Mail, packages, or anything with a name printed on it sitting on a counter or porch.
• Alarm panels or visible door codes - an easy one to miss in a kitchen or entryway shot, and an easy one to regret.
• Faces, especially kids' faces, unless the person photographed clearly agreed to it. Crop tight on the work instead of the room.

Any basic photo editor can crop or blur these in under a minute. Building that into your habit - every photo, every time, before it leaves your phone - means you never have to remember which specific job you did or didn't get a clear yes on.

If a customer asks you to take a photo down

It happens, and it's almost never adversarial - someone sells the house, a relative recognizes it and teases them, or they just reconsider having their kitchen searchable. Take it down immediately, thank them for telling you, and don't argue about whether you were technically entitled to keep it up. The relationship and the review they might still leave you are worth more than one photo in a gallery. This is also, not coincidentally, where a customer's opinion of you as a business gets set for years, long after the job itself is forgotten.

Where RunCabin fits

We build done-for-you websites around exactly this kind of real, own-your-work photography, because it's the strongest trust signal a local business has - more on choosing and using it in what photos to put on your website. The part that matters most for this specific situation: when a customer asks you to change or remove a photo, you don't file a support ticket and wait. You just ask, in plain English - "take down the kitchen photo from the Miller job," "blur the house number in the second gallery shot" - and it's done in moments, the same way any other edit works. No page builder, no waiting on a designer's calendar days after the customer already asked once.

It's $39.99/mo, flat - your domain, professional email, a free AI logo, and hosting included, no setup fee and no contract. Every quote request lands straight in your inbox, no lead fees. A website is supposed to make you look good to strangers; it shouldn't ever make a customer feel like their home became content without them agreeing to it.

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Related reading: what photos to put on your website · does my website need a privacy policy? · how to look professional online