Prime Minister Andy Burnham has vowed to "put cowboy builders out of business" as the government prepares to introduce new measures to stop people being ripped off during home renovation projects.
New schemes to protect consumers
From September, a government-backed scheme will help people identify and hire trusted traders. Businesses signing up to the Approved Code will be able to show they meet higher standards of customer service, transparency and dispute resolution.
There will also be a new system to protect people's money during building projects, with payments directly linked to key project milestones.
The government said this will support the many builders across the UK who do the right thing by their customers and prevent them being undercut by rogue operators.
How the schemes will work
The Trusted Payment and Approved Codes Scheme have been developed by Trusted Payments and the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman (FHIO) respectively.
The Trusted Payments app will go live next week, with over 100,000 traders able to access it before the end of September. The Approved Code will be live with its first retailers by the end of September and fully live by December 2026.
Prime Minister's statement
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: "Cowboy builders don't just rip people off. They leave families with months of stress, the disruption of unfinished work, and that horrible feeling of being taken advantage of."
"Not only that, but they give the vast majority of decent, hardworking tradespeople a bad name.
"So we're putting the cowboys out of business. These changes mean you'll now have the option to make sure your money is held safely and released bit by bit as the work gets done.
"It's the latest in our series of everyday fixes to give people room to breathe and make Britain fairer. We've taken on subscription traps, fake discounts, and now we're coming for the cowboy builders. Enough is enough."
Scale of the problem
According to data supplied by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), more than 25% of UK adults who carried out home improvements in the past 18 months experienced problems, while 37% of these faced extra costs, losing an average of £750 of their money.
Furthermore, according to the latest figures, people lost a total of £10.3bn on home and garden maintenance due to losses, overpriced costs or unfair practices.
The Liverpool ECHO has reported on several cases of 'dodgy builders', as well as the testimonies of people who have complained of building firms taking their money and not completing the work.
In March, the ECHO reported on the case of Richard Williams who scammed more than a dozen people, pocketing approximately £75,000 for works he never completed.
Once the majority of the contracted price was paid, Williams would fail to show at the victims' addresses to complete the work, leaving them with incomplete projects which they had to have finished off by a third party contractor.
What work was done was of poor quality and in many cases needed to be removed and re-done. In some cases, money was taken and no work was done at all.
Stories like these invariably involve families spending thousands of pounds on home improvement projects which never get completed, and are often left with half-finished jobs, their homes upended, and with little chance of ever retrieving their money.
The Trusted Payment and Approved Codes Scheme aims to address the issue of financial confidence in the home improvement sector, for both consumers and traders.
Trusted Payments representative James Walker said: "Working with initiatives like Trusted Payments will immediately deliver the increased consumer protection the market needs, so consumers can spend money securely."
