Checkatrade Trust

[user1465146157]

We are decorating a new house and we have quite a bit of work to do before we move in.

As we have a baby we have a deadline to get it all done so we have found a few people on Checkatrade to provide quotes.

Some have been too expensive but one guy has sent a reasonable quote and can start this week.

We are a bit dubious - he seems nice but we don't know him other than reviews on checkatrade - can we trust these reviews?

is it a bad sign if a builder can start immediately?

Personally I don't trust checkatrade at all. I used someone who had excellent checkatrade reviews who was absolutely awful. It's really really hard to leave a bad review, I tried for these guys and gave up because checkatrade makes it so hard to leave negative feedback.

My only experience of this was when I used a brilliant young builder a couple of years ago; he phoned a few weeks later to say he wanted to register with Checkatrade and could he give them my phone number for a review/verification. A week or two later a lady from Checkatrade rang to ask a load of questions about him, and I gave my honest opinion.

I just tried to look at the Checkatrade site and couldn't really check to see if my review is on there because you have to put all sorts of details on (rather than just have a nosey).

Not sure if that helps. Sorry.

Can you ask to see some of his previous work? If he's good, he'll have a solid relationship with previous clients. They could, of course, be his mates but worth a go. Checkatrade is a paid-for service but they do check for solvency etc so it helps to some degree.