Unlicensed Tradespeople !

It seems to be a very familiar lament.  A householder engages what he or she believes is a licensed professional to do work on their home, only to find that the quality falls far short of expectation and the contractor walks off leaving the job unfinished.   Very often, the work done is so shoddy that it requires demolition and a completely new start.

Fair Trading urges people to be very careful and obey good business practice before letting any contract - but that is easier said than done.   It is common for a license number to feature prominently on business cards, quotation documents and invoices, but in many cases this relates to a valid professional who has retired, or someone who has long gone out of business.   Unless the contractor has a sordid business history it is unlikely that Fair Trading will be aware of this deception.

Contractors are legitimately entitled to a deposit before the start of work and generally ten percent of the contract price is normal, and progress payments are required as the work proceeds to pay for the materials used.   It is a clear warning sign if the contractor is demanding excess payments far in advance of work completed, or asking for the entire contract money to be paid prior to completion.

One of the scams commonly used by unscrupulous builders is to contract for work far in excess of their qualification ruling.  It is normal for the less skilled to be limited to jobs under $1000 to allow them to do maintenance work in the capacity of carpentry, but in some instances they have undertaken contracts to build home extensions in the $200,000 price range.  Working beyond their skill set creates a litany of mistakes that multiply as they use desperation measures by way of recovery action.   The end result is usually a financial disaster.

Another scam involves constant business name changes.  A shonky builder finding that his company is gaining notoriety simply chooses a new name and has appropriate business identification cheaply printed.  In many cases, trading continues under a multiplicity of names to muddy up past business history and make references hard to check.

We go to a lot of trouble to authenticate documents such as driving licenses and passports.  The expertise exists to make these difficult to forge and the same technology should apply to business licensing.   We need to provide valid identification to gain both a passport and a driving license and a similar requirement should apply to a photo identification card that not only names the person who is licensed to provide the type of service for which he or she is registered, but also the trading name of the company involved.

Should a licensed contractor register the name of a new company, the entire card issue regimen would need to be repeated to ensure that both the person and the company undertaking work is identified clearly on the license they show to prove their qualification to contract.

A license to trade is an important document intended to safeguard  the public.   It is equally important that it be subjected to the same security at point of issue as driving licenses and passports.  That is the only way we have a hope of driving dodgy contractors out of business !