How to Choose a Builder: The Questions Worth Asking Before You Appoint
There is no licence to be a builder in the United Kingdom. No register you must join, no examination you must pass, no minimum insurance you must hold. Anyone can print cards tomorrow and start quoting for work on your home.
We say that as a building company, and we say it because it is the single most important thing a homeowner needs to understand. The entire responsibility for checking sits with you, and the checks that matter take about an hour.
Recent research from the Federation of Master Builders and the HomeOwners Alliance found that a third of homeowners under 35 now rely primarily on online reviews when choosing a builder, whilst only 8% check whether the company belongs to a trade body. Reviews can be bought and comparison platforms are not regulated. They are a starting point, not a substitute for verification.
The checks worth doing before you invite anyone to quote
Companies House. Two minutes, free, and it tells you a great deal. How long has the company been trading? Are accounts filed and up to date? Have the directors previously run companies that were dissolved or went into liquidation? A pattern of short-lived companies under the same names is the clearest warning sign in the industry.
Accreditations, and what they actually mean. Not all badges carry the same weight, and knowing the difference is useful:
· SafeContractor and CHAS are health and safety assessment schemes. Passing them means a company's safety policies, risk assessments, training records and accident history have been independently audited. They are the schemes public sector clients insist on.
· Constructionline is the UK's largest procurement and supply chain register, used by government bodies and local authorities. Membership means financial standing, insurance and compliance are verified and monitored.
· The Federation of Master Builders vets trading history, inspects work and requires evidence of insurance. Membership is not automatic and it is not bought.
· TrustMark is the only government-endorsed quality scheme for work in and around the home.
Ask which schemes a contractor holds and then check the schemes' own registers rather than taking the logos on a website at face value. We hold SafeContractor, CHAS, Constructionline and FMB accreditation, and every one of those is verifiable independently of us.
Insurance. There are three types and they cover different things. Public liability covers injury or damage to third parties and their property. Employers' liability is a legal requirement for any company with staff. Contract works or all-risks insurance covers the partly completed works themselves, which is the one most homeowners never think to ask about and the one that matters if a half-built extension is damaged in a storm. Ask for certificates, check the expiry dates, and check the level of cover is proportionate to your project.
Competent person registrations for the specialist trades. Gas Safe for anything involving gas. NICEIC or NAPIT for electrical work under Part P. These are not optional, and a builder who is vague about who is doing that work and what they are registered with is a builder to walk away from.
The questions to ask on site
Once you have a shortlist, the conversation matters more than the paperwork. These are the questions that reveal how a company actually operates.
Can I visit a completed project of a similar type? Not photographs. An actual property, ideally with the client present. Any contractor with a genuine record will arrange it. Ask the previous client the questions that matter: did the price hold, did the programme hold, how were problems handled, would you use them again.
Who will be my day-to-day point of contact, and will that person be on site? The answer tells you whether you are being sold by one person and delivered by another. On our projects the contract manager who prices the job stays with it through to handover.
How are variations handled? Every project changes. What matters is whether changes are priced and agreed in writing before they are carried out, or presented as a surprise in the final account. Ask to see the process.
What is your snagging and aftercare process, and how long is the defects period? Six to twelve months is normal. Ask what happens if something fails in month eleven.
Who is actually doing the work? Directly employed staff, long-standing subcontractors or labour sourced job by job. We work with around 70 staff and a supply chain of more than 200, and we can tell a client precisely which trades are ours and which are our regular partners.
What is your current workload? A contractor with nothing on is worth asking about. A contractor booked eighteen months out may not suit your timescale. Neither is disqualifying, but both are worth knowing.
Have you worked with this local authority before? On heritage, conservation area or listed work in particular, familiarity with the relevant conservation officer and the local plan is worth real money. Our guide to planning permission and building regulations sets out why.
How to compare quotes properly
Give every contractor the same written specification. This is the single most valuable hour you will spend on the whole project. Without an identical document, three quotes describe three different projects, and the cheapest is simply the one that has assumed the least.
When the prices come back:
Divide by floor area. It converts three incomparable numbers into a rate you can judge. Our guide to what a refurbishment costs sets out current Three Counties bands.
Read the exclusions list first. This is where the real differences sit. Professional fees, glazing, kitchens, sanitaryware, making good, decoration, scaffolding, skips, welfare facilities, temporary services. A low price with a long exclusions list is not a low price.
Hunt every provisional sum. A provisional sum is a placeholder for work not yet fully defined. Each one can grow. Ask what happens when it does and what the basis of the eventual price will be.
Check VAT is stated. On a £150,000 project the difference between a quote inclusive and exclusive of VAT is £30,000, and that ambiguity causes more disputes than any other single line.
Be wary of the outlier. If one price is 30% below the others on identical information, something has been missed or something will be recovered later as an extra. The middle quote from a well-referenced contractor is usually the best value on the table.
The contract
Use one. Always, and for any project of consequence. The JCT Home Owner contract or the FMB's equivalent are both designed for domestic work, cost nothing to use and protect both parties. A contractor who resists a written contract is telling you something important about how they intend to behave when things get difficult.
Whatever form you use, it needs to cover:
· Scope of works, referenced to the specification and drawings
· The contract sum, and the process for pricing variations
· Stage payments tied to defined milestones rather than dates
· Start and completion dates, with provision for delay
· Liquidated damages, a pre-agreed daily or weekly figure if the work overruns
· The defects liability period, typically six to twelve months
· Retention, usually 2.5 to 5% held until defects are made good
· Insurance obligations on both sides
· How disputes will be resolved
On payment, two rules protect you more than everything else combined. Never pay more than 10 to 15% up front, and only for identifiable materials being ordered. And never pay ahead of work completed. Payment should follow value delivered, not precede it.
The final rule is the most useful of all: hold your last payment until building control has issued the completion certificate. That certificate is what your solicitor will ask for when you sell, and it is the cleanest possible confirmation that the work has been done properly.
What we would want you to ask us
We are happy to be held to every test above. We have been building across Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, the Cotswolds, Bristol and the wider Midlands since 2017, with more than 60 years of combined leadership experience behind the business and six divisions covering private homes, commercial, education, local authority, housing association and maintenance work.
We hold SafeContractor, CHAS, Constructionline and FMB accreditation, and we will send the certificates before you ask. You can see our projects, from Avenue Road in Malvern through to Crowle School near Worcester and Abbey Grounds in Cirencester, and we will arrange for you to speak to those clients directly.
If you are planning a large refurbishment and you are working through a shortlist, we would be glad to be on it, and equally glad to help you interrogate whoever else is. Earlier conversations are always better than later ones. You can read more about us or simply pick up the phone.
Talk to our team on 01684 423211 or at office@midlandsbm.co.uk.
Build with Confidence.