How to find a reliable tradesperson for a rental property

In your own home, a botched job is your problem to live with. In a rental, it's a compliance and liability problem: uncertified gas or electrical work can breach your legal duties, void warranties, and give your insurer a reason to decline a claim. The bar for who you let into a tenanted property is higher.

The good news is that the checks are quick once you know what to look for.

Match the qualification to the work. Gas work must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer — you can check their licence card and verify them on the Gas Safe Register. Fixed electrical work should be done by someone Part P competent, usually registered with a scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT — the IET's Part P guidance explains what's notifiable. For damp, look for an independent surveyor rather than a firm selling treatment.

Don't accept ‘I work with a Gas Safe guy’ — the person doing the work needs to hold the registration themselves.

Ask for proof of public liability insurance (commonly £1–£2m of cover) — it protects you if something goes wrong on site. Then ask for recent references on similar work, ideally other rental or managed properties, and actually follow one up.

A trade that does good, regular work will have these to hand without fuss. Hesitation is itself a signal.

Insist on a written quote that states the scope, what's included and excluded, the parts allowance, VAT, and any call-out fee. Vague verbal numbers are how jobs balloon — WaterSafe's rogue trader advice recommends at least three written quotes for exactly this reason. Then get two or three quotes for the same scope so you're comparing the same job rather than guessing whether one is dear.

This is the step most landlords skip because it's tedious — chasing several trades and lining up quotes written three different ways takes real time.

Walk away from: cash-only demands and no invoice, no written quote, pressure to decide immediately, large deposits before any work, no verifiable business address or registration, and reluctance to provide insurance or references. None of these are normal for a reputable trade.

All of the above is exactly what FixQuotes does before a quote reaches you: we write the job up properly, send it to vetted local trades, check the credentials that the work legally requires, and return three quotes for the same job in one place. You still choose and contract directly with the trade — but the vetting and the side-by-side comparison are already done.