A new survey has found that around a quarter of homeowners had trouble with their last repair job.
As a result, they were left stressed out, out of pocket, or stuck living with work that was never finished properly done right. The study, carried out for Citizens Advice, found that 4.8 million households have dealt with issues like this in the past year and a half alone, from cracked walls left half fixed to jobs that were simply abandoned partway through. For a huge number of families, the mess left behind by a bad repair caused just as much upset as the original problem they were trying to sort out in the first place, and in some cases it made their homes worse than before anyone turned up with a toolbox.
A quarter of homes have been hit by dodgy repair jobs.
The scale of the problem is bigger than most people probably realise. Millions of households across the country have had to live with unfinished work, unsafe repairs, or drawn out arguments with the person they hired, and for many that meant weeks or even months of upheaval in their own home.
Some of the worst issues came from jobs meant to make homes more energy efficient, along with room renovations, roofing work, and changes to outside walls. These tend to be big, expensive jobs involving scaffolding, insulation or major structural changes, which makes it even more painful when something goes wrong partway through, since there’s often no easy way to undo the damage or start again from scratch.
The bill for fixing someone else’s mistakes is a hefty one.
Around 1.7 million homeowners ended up paying to fix work that had already supposedly been finished once, or discovered they had simply been charged too much from the start. On average, they lost £750 each, money that in most cases they never expected to spend twice on the same job.
For one in ten people, the extra cost climbed even higher, tipping over £5,000. That kind of bill can wipe out savings meant for something else entirely, whether that’s a holiday, a car, or simply a cushion for emergencies, and it often lands on people who were already stretching their budget to pay for the original work.
Stress and worry plague homeowners who simply wanted to improve their properties.
Money wasn’t the only thing at stake here. More than a third of homeowners who ran into problems said the whole experience left them feeling stressed, and over one in 10 said it actually made them feel unsafe inside their own home, which is a strange and unsettling thing to feel in a place that’s supposed to be your refuge.
This isn’t a rare, one off complaint, either. Citizens Advice said home repair problems led to almost 37,000 complaints to its consumer service last year, showing just how often things go wrong across the country rather than being the odd unlucky case here and there.
Sorting it out is its own battle.
Getting a problem fixed after the fact turned out to be just as difficult as avoiding it in the first place. Most people who tried to resolve things ran into some sort of barrier along the way, whether that meant chasing the trader for weeks or simply not knowing who else to turn to.
One in five said the whole process dragged on for far longer than they expected, and some found that the person they’d hired simply stopped responding once things went wrong. Others admitted they had no idea how to take the matter further once talking to the trader directly hadn’t worked. Right now, using outside help to settle these disputes is entirely optional for traders rather than something they’re required to sign up to, which leaves a lot of homeowners with nowhere clear to go.
Some people would rather do it themselves.
Not everyone is willing to take the risk of hiring someone at all. More than a quarter of people who needed repairs done in the last year and a half chose to tackle the work themselves instead, simply because they didn’t feel confident they could find someone trustworthy to do it for them.
A similar number put off getting repairs done altogether for exactly the same reason, choosing to live with a problem rather than risk making it worse. Citizens Advice found that doing extra research beforehand didn’t actually stop people running into trouble, either, which suggests the problem runs a lot deeper than simply picking the wrong name off a list.
Word of mouth still beats a flashy website.
More than a third of people found their tradesperson through someone they already knew, rather than scrolling through an online directory. That says a lot about how much trust still comes down to a personal recommendation from a friend or neighbour rather than a shiny five star rating on a screen.
Even people who used a trader with official approval or accreditation weren’t immune to confusion. One in five of them said it was still difficult to check whether those credentials were genuine, meaning even the badges meant to offer reassurance don’t always do the job they’re supposed to.
Don’t take the word “trusted” at face value.
Anyone searching online for a tradesperson should think twice before trusting words like “trusted”, “reliable” or “expert” plastered across a recommendation site. These words sound reassuring on the surface, but they don’t always mean the site has actually gone through the process of checking anything at all.
This is one of the exact areas regulators are now cracking down on, with formal warnings already going out to sites accused of making claims they can’t actually back up with evidence.
Look for proof the site actually checks its traders.
Before placing any trust in a website, it’s important to dig into what actually goes on behind the scenes. A site that truly verifies its traders will usually check things like licences, insurance and certificates, and it tends to make this clear somewhere on its pages rather than burying it.
Checkatrade, for example, says every tradesperson listed goes through up to 12 separate checks before being approved to appear on the site. If a website doesn’t spell out what it actually checks, contact them directly and asking exactly how their vetting process works.
See how a site deals with complaints before you need it.
It pays to look into how a website handles complaints long before you ever actually need to raise one yourself. A site with a solid, well explained process will make clear how disputes get resolved and roughly how long that tends to take.
Some sites also offer guarantees covering work carried out through them, which can make a real difference if a job does need fixing later down the line, since it gives you somewhere to turn beyond simply chasing the trader yourself.
Watch how traders are marked and removed.
A good recommendation site doesn’t just list traders and walk away from them. It should also be keeping a close eye on how those traders perform over time, gathering feedback consistently and reviewing it in a meaningful way, rather than just once and forgetting about it.
It’s important to ask what actually happens once a complaint against a trader is upheld, and whether the site removes people who repeatedly let customers down. If there’s no clear answer to that question, it’s usually a sign the vetting doesn’t go as deep as it might first appear.
Genuine reviews look different from fake ones.
Reading reviews is one of the very first things most people do before hiring anyone, but not every review out there can be taken at face value. Look for signs that a site has actually checked where its feedback is coming from in the first place.
Badges or labels confirming that reviews were left by real, verified customers are a good sign to look out for. If a site has no way of proving its reviews are genuine, you should treat a glowing star rating with a healthy dose of caution rather than taking it as gospel.
Take your time before you book anyone.
Once you’ve found a website you feel you can trust, resist the urge to rush into booking the very first name that pops up. Take a bit of time to compare a handful of different traders side by side before making a final call.
Weigh up their experience, qualifications, certificates, and reviews that have actually been checked rather than just skimming the star count. One homeowner told The Sun he was left £52,000 out of pocket after rogue traders left his family without the dream extension they had been promised, a stark reminder of just how costly the wrong choice can turn out to be when things go badly wrong.
