The kitchen tap needs fixing, you'd like the hall and stairs decorated, you want a new shower installed and the roof could do with some patching up. The headache is how to avoid the cowboys and find an honest trader to provide a good, reliable service at a fair price.
When friends and family can't recommend anyone, it's hard to know where to look – sticking a pin in the listings in local business directories to find a firm is not recommended.
Local recommendations
Your trading standards service may operate a Builders' Register, with lists of plumbers, roofers, electricians and so on who have been recommended and have undergone a strict vetting procedure by trading standards. Use the post code search at the Trading Standards website to find your local office then search on that for a register.
The Local Authority Assured Trader Scheme Network (LAATSN) links together some of the schemes run by 18 local authority trading standards services. LAATSN requires businesses to comply with all trading standards legislation and civil law obligations, to refrain from high-pressure selling, to have an effective complaints procedure and a strong emphasis on customer service.
Which? offers an increasingly popular local service in which members share recommendations, from bathroom fitters to painters and decorators. It now hosts 70,000 tradespeople recommended and rated by members, and the site works hard to weed out fake recommendations. "All are checked by our moderators, where we are looking to avoid builders recommending themselves. We find people every week doing this and chuck them out," says Pete Tynan of Which?
Members can also leave negative feedback if a builder they used was disappointing. But you have to be a Which? subscriber and enter your number before accessing the pages. Go to Which? Local. A one-month trial is £1, followed by a monthly cost of £7.75.
Approved trader schemes
TrustMark (consumer helpline 01344 630 804) is a not-for-profit government-backed scheme supported by trade bodies, local trading standards and consumer groups. The logo means that technical skills, quality of work and financial status have all been checked and that the firm has signed up to a code of practice that includes insurance, health and safety and good customer service.
"We've now got the largest database of accredited tradespeople in the UK with just over 18,000 licensed traders spanning 25 trades," says spokesman Stuart Carter. "And we're the only organisation to do on-site inspections of firms' work, plus we offer a very robust complaints procedure for any dissatisfied consumers."
On the website you simply put in your postcode and say what sort of trader you want. The database is then searched within 50 miles of your postcode and comes up with a list of trader contacts in order of those closest to you. TradeMark has on average over 300,000 trader's details viewed online every month.
Commercial directories
RatedPeople (0870 220 8811) claims to be the UK's largest trade recommendation service, "where consumers can find and choose traders in their area based on what others have said about them".
The way it works is that you post your location and the job you want doing on the website, giving a clear description of what you're after. Up to three "recommended traders" who subscribe to the service then contact you to quote on the work and you can read online what other customers have said about them.
After the job is complete, you go back and rate the trader on the work they have done which adds to (or detracts from) their list of customer recommendations.
The site, founded in 2005, claims to have more than 25,000 trader members, to have accrued over 55,000 posted ratings, and to help 15,000 people connect with expert tradespeople each month.
Trustatrader.com (01438 898002) is another national recommendation-based directory where consumers can do a postcode search to locate a list of traders in their local area – not just builders but also retailers, car sales and garage services.
Before contacting traders on the list, consumers can access feedback left by previous customers, plus online images of previous work carried out. Trustatrader also claims that it checks out and monitors traders who join the service to see that they are, "fully experienced in their trade, have proof of any qualifications required by law and of membership to trade associations, have public liability insurance a signed code of conduct have five recent and glowing customers references".
While useful for checking customer views of traders you may be considering, be aware that recommendation sites do not give the same assurances as government-backed sites.
"The problem with many of these commercial directories is that (unlike Trustmark) they don't take any responsibility for the quality of the work," says Stuart Carter.
Customer ratings on such recommendation sites can also be rigged by rogue traders getting friends and relatives to post false references saying how great their work is, Mr Carter adds, though Rated People disputes this. "Only customers that have found their tradesman through Rated People can leave ratings, so they are always based on genuine experiences from previous customers," it says on its website.
What to do
Be specific and set out a detailed, clear brief when requesting quotes. Get more than one and, ideally, at least three.
Ask for a detailed, written quotation with start and finish times and agreed payment terms.
Seek references, speak to previous customers and if possible visit previous jobs.
Use established firms - make sure they have an office address and landline phone number. Be wary of firms only willing to give you a mobile number.
Only pay for work that has been done and not by advance payments. But where materials need to be bought in advance, it's reasonable for the trader to ask you to pay a fair percentage of these costs as the job progresses.
Always use a written contract - it offers you protection if anything does go wrong. Agree any stage and final payments before work starts.
