Updating post from Reddit.
I own a property maintenance company that covers the UK.
I am currently doing research on how you currently find tradesmen?
Reason being is we are looking to increase our workload and need to ascertain in which direction to go
Please comment below with your current process.
Google Recommendations Pot luck if I find a good tradesman, when I do I keep their details.
Personal recommendations from someone I know well such as a friend or neighbour whenever possible.
My letting agency sources the contractors for me. Each year they claim to review the contractors they use and state that they are competitive.
So far, I’ve had tradesman loose EICRs, not send invoices for months, replace one thing on a toilet, then replace the exact same thing a month later. One tradesman says I need something repaired, another one went out and checked it and said just clean it
Useless. Would prefer to find my own but challenging when don’t have contact with tenant and live out of the city the flat is in
Surprisingly, we've come across a fair few jobs like this where we've gone in and realised the previous tradesman did a poor job or an unnecessary one.
Incredibly frustrating. I keep trying to call the agency out for it, and noticed they never once say sorry. They just investigate and never come back to me, even when I chase. Discovered this evening all their 5 stars reviews in Google are suspiciously similar. Fake.
Good luck
I think the main issue is that work is not checked before being invoiced for, so the tradie just carries on happy as Larry and keeps getting sweet jobs they can be poor at with no-one addressing it.
Get the job inspected (by someone competent) before signing it off and most of your issues will be resolved.
Facebook search using whatever trade I need plus the name of the town I’m looking in. Then just search for trades that people have recommended, and view their reviews
The pub
I've got most of mine through recommendations or posts on NextDoor.
The road one of our rentals is on. We know a bunch of the people there and it's got a lot of tradefolk so someone always knows someone who is good. Of course except for emergencies they are "get back to you in 6 months" because the only people around here without a 6 month backlog are the ones who managed the near impossible life achievement of being fired from a newbuild site.