A private firm specialising in vetting tradesmen has teamed up with a firm of Chartered Surveyors to create a ‘Consumer Protection Guarantee’, in an effort to rival national trades quality assurance watchdog TrustMark.
The Consumer Protection Guarantee uses the fact that the Goldcrest, the surveyors backing-up the private initiative have access to the RICS Client Money Protection scheme. This is a so-called escrow account that allows monies for building works to be held over until successful completion. It is then transferred into the contractors account after client sign-off. Escrows are typical in most construction contracts but almost unheard of in domestic small works.
Harvey Ellingham of ‘Tradesmen Connect, co-founder of the CPG scheme said “We’re the first company to actually pick up on the most important aspect- the financial side of a contract, and use the strength of that to settle any possible disputes. If there’s a problem, a RICS certified surveyor will look at the works and arbitrate on it- when you sign up to use the service, which is free to the consumer, you agree that their decision is binding’. Ellingham explained that contractor vetting process cost £395, and signing a project up to the scheme. 1.5% of the total contract sum. The tie-in with Surveyor Goldcrest has allowed them to access the RICS Client Money Protection Scheme as a central part of its business case.
Liz Male, chairman of Trustmark which has 12,000 members signed up since it formed five years ago, was not aware of the private scheme but was interested in its financial case. Asked why TrustMark had not adopted a similar escrow approach, Male did not rule it out saying ‘We are constantly reviewing aspects of improving TrustMark’s performance, and looking at using Escrows is one of them, but you need the right financial vehicle to manage it. Our issue is making it work for the small sums of money we are usually talking about- the average home improvement comes in at less than £1000’.
Male said most escrows were optimised to deal with larger contract sums. ‘Most middle-income consumers have the financial means to seek redress, for bad works- Trustmark is really about supporting the most vulnerable- like the elderly or young first-time buyers with no experience of construction’, she added.
RICS have just confirmed to me they were unaware of this scheme and have asked them to remove the RICS logo as it is not party nor will it be party to the proposition.