Ridding the industry of cowboy builders

We’re in Master Builder magazine, this time, with Pencil and Brick director Seàn talking about cowboy builders and why we think licensing can’t come soon enough.

We’ve heard plenty of these stories over the years, from clients who’ve had bad experiences before they came to us, and from Seán’s time on the Federation of Master Builders London Board, where dodgy builders come up more often than anyone would like. In the magazine, Seán talks about one particular tiling job that went badly wrong, and cost far more than money. It cost time, and it cost trust. But it’s never just tilers. The same thing plays out across every trade, whenever someone’s hired without any real way of knowing what they’re actually getting.

If you want the full story, and you can find it here: “Ridding of the Rogues”.

Why anyone can still call themselves a builder

Right now, that’s genuinely true. There’s no entry standard, no accountability, and nothing stopping someone who’s been thrown off one job from simply opening up under a different name down the road. Bodies like the FMB and TrustMark hold their members to real standards, but there are only around 7,000 FMB members against a UK builder population many times that size. So most of the market sits well outside any oversight at all.

Because of that gap, homeowners end up carrying all the risk. If it goes wrong, there’s often no one to complain to and no way to get your money back.

What licensing would actually change

A mandatory scheme would raise the bar at entry, so it’s harder for someone with no training or track record to set up shop overnight. It would give homeowners a proper route to redress when work goes wrong, rather than a shrug and a closed Facebook group. And it would help unlock work that’s currently being put off altogether, since a lot of homeowners are simply too nervous to commit without some kind of guarantee they’re hiring the right person.

It’s a case that’s gaining ground too. The FMB has picked up support from MPs across the Commons, helped shape a Private Members’ Bill on the issue, and kept up a steady conversation with government departments about how licensing would actually work in practice. Seán’s part in that campaign, and the standards-first approach he brought over from his years as an architect, is what earned him a seat on the FMB London Board.

How to vet builders for projects

Until licensing exists, the job of vetting a builder properly falls on homeowners, and most people have never really been shown how to do that well. So we put together a guide for exactly this free guide: 10 Questions Every London Homeowner Should Ask Before Hiring a Builder. It covers what to look for in a quote, how payments and contracts should be structured, and who’s actually accountable for your project once work starts.