Almost every job that goes badly wrong was agreed in about four minutes on a doorstep. These are the checks that take twenty minutes instead, the questions that stop an argument before there is anything to argue about, plus the one payment choice that protects the whole job.
Here is the uncomfortable thing about hiring somebody to work on your house. The moment you most need to be careful is the moment you are least able to be, because the boiler has died, it is Thursday and the one person who can come tomorrow is standing in your kitchen wanting an answer.
Nobody is going to do a procurement exercise on a broken boiler. So the goal is not to be thorough. It is to have a short list of things that are quick to check, hard to fake and cover most of what goes wrong.
There are about six of them.
The short version
- Gas work is illegal without Gas Safe registration and the register is free to search
- Electrical, glazing, oil and solid fuel work have their own schemes and being on one means they can self-certify to building control
- Ask for the public liability certificate and check the dates and the name on it
- A quote is a fixed price offer, an estimate is a guess and the words are not interchangeable
- Never pay the whole job up front; a deposit for materials is normal, the full amount is not
- Paying a deposit over £100 by credit card gives you protection a bank transfer does not
The registers and what each one proves
Different trades sit on different schemes and they do not all mean the same thing.
Gas Safe is the only legal option for gas work in the UK. Anyone working on gas appliances or pipework has to be on it. You can check a business or an engineer on the register for free. Do check the card as well as the number: the back lists which categories of work the person is qualified for, so being Gas Safe registered for cookers does not mean somebody can touch your boiler.
Part P schemes cover electrical work in homes. NICEIC, NAPIT and ELECSA are the names you will see. A registered electrician can certify their own work and notify building control for you.
FENSA and Certass do the same job for replacement windows and external doors. OFTEC covers oil, HETAS covers solid fuel and wood burners.
TrustMark is a different animal. It is a government endorsed quality scheme spanning many trades. A useful signal, but not a competent person scheme, so it does not by itself let anybody self-certify anything.
The reason this matters beyond competence is paperwork. Registered installers produce a compliance certificate that goes on your property's record and gets asked for when you sell. An unregistered one leaves you to sort out building control yourself, which is a subject of its own in planning permission or building regulations.
Insurance: the question and the follow-up
"Are you insured?" gets a yes from everybody, including the people who are not.
Ask to see the public liability certificate instead. It takes them ten seconds to forward and it tells you three things: that the policy exists, that it is in date and, most usefully, what name it is in. A certificate in the name of a company that dissolved two years ago is a real thing that happens.
Cover of one to five million pounds is normal for domestic work. What the policy is for is damage to your property and injury to other people, so it is the thing standing between you and a very awkward conversation about a drilled water main.
Two related checks, both quick. If they trade as a limited company, look it up on Companies House: the number, the incorporation date and whether the company has a history. A brand new company is not automatically a problem, but a brand new company with an old trading name is worth a question. And ask for two recent jobs you could go and look at, ideally similar to yours. The good ones offer this before you ask.
Money: deposits, stages and the card
A deposit for materials on a large job is normal and reasonable. Paying the whole thing before anybody starts is not. No reputable trade will ask for it.
For anything substantial, agree stages tied to things that visibly happen: materials delivered, first fix complete, second fix complete, snagging signed off. It protects both of you. It also gives you a way to stop, which a single payment does not.
Then there is the quiet one. If you pay a deposit of more than £100 by credit card, section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes the card company jointly liable with the trader for a breach of contract or misrepresentation, up to £30,000. That protection applies to the whole contract value, not just the bit you put on the card, which means a £200 deposit on a card can cover a £9,000 job. A bank transfer gives you none of that and a debit card only gives you chargeback, which is a scheme rule rather than a legal right.
That single choice is probably the highest value thing on this page.
The questions that prevent the arguments
Almost every dispute about building work traces back to something that was never discussed, rather than something that was agreed and then broken. Six questions cover most of it.
Who notifies building control, you or me? If the answer is vague, assume it is you.
What is the completion date and what happens if it slips? A date in writing is worth more than a promise about the weather.
Who takes the waste away? Skips and tip runs are a common late addition.
What counts as making good? Plastering, painting and putting the carpet back are three different jobs and none of them are automatic.
What are the working hours and do you need the drive? Small, but it is the thing neighbours remember.
What is the guarantee and is it yours or the manufacturer's? A boiler warranty from the manufacturer usually depends on annual servicing. A workmanship guarantee from a sole trader is worth exactly as long as the sole trader.
If the answers come easily, you have probably found somebody who has done this before.
What to keep when it is finished
The job ends, the mess goes and this is where most households stop. It is worth another ten minutes.
Keep the written quote, the final invoice, the compliance or completion certificate, the guarantee, the manuals for anything installed and the name and number of whoever did it. Photograph anything that is about to be covered up: pipe runs before the floor goes down, cable routes before the plaster, the position of a soil pipe.
Two of those pay off within a year, when something needs adjusting and you cannot remember who fitted it. The rest pay off when you sell, when a solicitor asks whether the work was signed off and the honest answer has to be a document rather than a memory.
And under the Consumer Rights Act, work has to be done with reasonable care and skill. If it is not, your first remedy is usually to have it put right rather than to demand money back. That conversation goes considerably better when you have the written scope in front of you.
Keep the trade and the job together
homehogs records who did the work, what it cost and what they left you with, so the next time something goes wrong you already know who to ring.
Join the waiting list
