Property Maintenance and construction: find the best contractor

Whether it’s commercial or residential job, it’s a big step to place your trust in a company for your next property maintenance and construction project, but the process of selecting a contractor is similar in lots of ways.

Choosing a contractor for your project can be painful and making a decision about which contractor to choose could become harder than picking a Brexit deal!

• Are you getting good value for money?
• Will the project be completed on time?
• Will the contractor be able to provide all the services they’ve promised?

These are some of the questions you might ask. These question become even more pertinent in a commercial space, where a kamikaze project could cause reputation and brand damage.

Here are some tips for what to look out for when hiring a property maintenance or construction company.

Location Location Location

Companies familiar with the local working area are often more cost effective than a company from farther afield. Economies can be found in transport costs and a local knowledge of wholesalers to the sector can pay dividends.

Familiarity of other local tradesmen could also be hugely beneficial should anything unexpected come up with the project that isn’t within your chosen contractor’s skillset. Benefits could be seen in terms of the cost, quality and speed of resolution.

Finally, a local company will have a local reputation to protect. Had they not performed well in the local market, they would have probably been pushed out by now.

Property maintenance and construction affiliations

Check into the company’s certifications and affiliations to give you confidence in their abilities. They’re usually displayed on a company’s website.

Some great accreditations to look out for when choosing a property maintenance or construction company are:

ContractorPlus

ContractorPlus is a nationwide, web enabled database used by companies to ensure that contractors are of the highest calibre and hold the relevant documentation to ensure safe working procedures within their properties, helping reducing liability and ensuring legislative compliance.

ISOQAR

ISOQAR demonstrates certification to ISO standards or British standards and shows that an organisation works to international or national best practice. This helps demonstrate their credibility and competence to customers.

ConstructionLine Accreditation

An accreditation that is often a pre-requisite in the bidding process for large organisations such as the NHS and local authorities. ConstructionLine certification demonstrates compliance with various industry standards.

SafeContractor

A leading health and safety accreditation and also a pre-requisite for the bidding process of many large companies.

Insurance

Your property maintenance and construction contractor

This is a MUST! Always ensure the company you use has adequate cover – ideally an exact reflection of your own.

This isn’t just important for commercial projects – as a homeowner you will be required to choose an appropriately insured contractor for your home insurance to be valid should you have any structural work performed.

Your insurance

Make sure you remember to contact your buildings insurer if you’re having significant work done. You may need to extend you policy or even take out a new specialist policy while the work is being performed, especially if it will be empty for a significant amount of time.