Home Repairs and Improvements
Guidelines from the Office of Fair Trading in conjunction with TrustMark.
These documents include practical advice (for both consumers and businesses) to help in the successful management and delivery of home repairs and improvements projects.
In the 18 months from January 2009 to September 2010, advice service Consumer Direct received over 146,000 complaints from consumers about problems they had experienced with home repairs and home improvement projects.
As a result of the high complaint levels, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) commissioned a report to research the sector in more detail. The results of the research were published in June 2011.
Following that research report, a steering group comprising OFT,
Citizens Advice, Trading Standards Services and TrustMark was
set up to implement the report's recommendations.
The top tips documents below are a result of this
work.
Top Tips for anyone about to have some work done in their home - Code: OFT1408 Having home improvement work done in your home can be a stressful, costly business, especially if it all goes wrong. Follow our top tips to help avoid some of the pitfalls.
Top Tips for Consumers - Code: OFT1409 Here's a helpful summary, so follow our top tips to help avoid some of the pitfalls.
Top Tips for Businesses - Code: OFT1410 These top tips are for firms / tradesmen who deal with consumers. We have identified key areas where intervention and a change in behaviour may avoid disputes at a later stage in the project.