Hiring a Tradesperson Checklist

Employing a tradesperson to work in your home can be a daunting idea, so you must have a plan. We have compiled a checklist of what to do before, during, and after hiring your tradesperson to help you get your job completed on budget and to the highest standard.

What to do before hiring

Before hiring your tradesman, we have some recommendations to help you make your choice.

We try our hardest to critically examine every business before allowing them to use our service.

Once we find a tradesperson in your area available to complete your job, we will notify you with a link to view their profile page.

Occasionally, tradespeople may not have completed their profile, but this doesn't mean they aren't skilled to do the job. In this instance, we recommend you asking the trade for their business social media profiles or pictures of previous work.

On the tradespeople profile, we request certain information so that you can assess the suitability of the candidate.

This information includes:

• Business Information. We request that our trades disclose as much information about themselves to make your decision easier. The business information will help you assess the size of your chosen business. We ask what type of business, age and size so that you can make a good judgement on the scale of business that you need for your job.
• About. The about section is for the tradespeople to disclose some information about themselves to help you choose. We recommend you give this a read. This section may contain various things to help you make an informed choice, including what the company must offer you in terms of skill, experience and examples of previous work.
• Qualifications. The qualification section will show any qualifications we have received from the trade. We verify the qualifications before they appear on the profile so you can be assured that they are genuine.
• Trades. The trades section of the profile will show all of the categories that the company offers and what they specialise in.
• Reviews. Any previous customers that have hired the tradesmen may have left a review. Check the profile to see how their experience went. Don't be put off if the company has no reviews as they may be new to the service but be a very reputable company.
• Public Liability insurance. We strongly advise that our tradespeople have public liability insurance; however, not all have uploaded proof of cover. Once a trade has accepted your job, you will be able to see if we have public liability insurance on file. Just because we haven't verified it does not mean they don't have it! – Read more about public liability insurance.

Other questions to consider before hiring:

• Has the trade got any references to show you?
• Can you see work they have done in the past?
• Have you looked online for other 3rd party reviews for this trade?
• If it is a large job have you checked other details like their LTD company status?

During the process

After you have decided on a trade, you should consider the questions below:

• Have they quoted or estimated a price?
• If it is a quoted price, does it include materials?
• Have you made sure the job is fully understood?
• Will they provide paperwork such as a written quote and an invoice after the work is complete?
• If they require a deposit, how much and why? Do they need to order materials or pay staff?
• Have you agreed a timescale with the trade?
• When is the full balance payable?
• Do they provide a guarantee for their work?

Once the work has commenced, communication is the key. Changing the specification of a job midway through is a major reason why disagreements occur. Make sure that you ask questions in stages if the job spans many hours or days. It is important to balance this with allowing the tradesperson to work in peace.

Paying for the work

Normally, it is common to pay a deposit and the rest on completion or in stages. If it is a small job, you may be tempted to pay upfront. Whilst this is fine, we recommend striking a balance where possible so that both parties are happy and confident that the job will go as intended.

After process

Once the tradesperson has completed the job and has been paid, it is important to leave feedback on the job to help others who may wish to use them in the future. Our feedback system is designed to bring accountability to our tradespeople and help them show off their skills and achievements when they have made customers happy.