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There’s a lot of discussion on this board, and anywhere else folks in the trades gather, about licensed vs unlicensed contractors or workers. Specifically the licensed folks who do quality work talk about how to handle being undercut by the fly by nighters. There is also a lot of talk on how the customers can ensure the contractor or trades person they are hiring will do quality work at a fair price.
To me there seems to be an obvious solution to both of these problems, but I’ve never seen it discussed, and I’m curious as to why.
My solution would be as follows.
Government involvement would be limited to deciding what work requires permits, and managing the administration and enforcement of the permit process. Anyone would be able to pull a permit, but all permitted work would be inspected to ensure it is to code (safe).
As those in the trades are best able to understand what is required for fair price, and quality work the contractor, trades people, handymen etc
would form an association. The requirements for joining the association would be set by the association members, but would include requirements to show that the person / business in question does quality work, meets all legal requirements (pulls permits, etc), is solvent, and is committed to treating the customer fairly. The association would include an arbitration board made up of members, and “regular” folk from the community would could arbitrate in customer / member disputes. This arbitration board would be independent enough that it could make fair decisions and would not be biased either towards the contractors or customers. The arbitrations would be available for anyone to look at (with personal details removed) in order to prove it’s fairness. The association would advertise heavily it’s requirements for membership and commitment to quality and fairness. More importantly it would enforce it’s membership requirements and remove from membership any member who stopped meeting the requirements. The association would NOT set any type of pricing structure that it’s members to follow. It would still be up the members to differentiate themselves on price / service / word of mouth advertisement in order to attract customers.
A customer could then choose any of the members, and expect to get a quality, and fair job. However if they decide price was the most important decision, they could choose to hire someone who was not a member of the association, and take all of the associated risks.
Contractors or trades people could choose whether or not to join the association. If they felt the fee was worth the the advertising benefit they would choose to join, if they felt the fee wasn’t worth they wouldn’t join, or they might choose to form another competing association.
The important think is that both the contractor and customer have complete freedom to choose, without artificial constraints imposed by government.
I realize that there are trade associations that exist, however they are useless to the consumer as they provide no assurance of quality, or fairness. Because of this, they are not really useful as means of advertising.
Comments?
FYI, I’m not a contractor or trades person. I’m a home owner who has designed and almost finished building his house. I’ve done the majority of the work myself, but have hired a few subcontractors to do things I felt I would be unable to do well enough myself. Other than being behind schedule, everything has gone well, including all my interactions with suppliers and subcontractors.
I know there is a lot of contractors and trades people out there who do great work, and are fair, but it’s very difficult to determine who they are. Recommendations work to a certain point, but the people who really know are the other trades people / contractors.
Replies
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There's a lot of discussion on this board, and anywhere else folks in the trades gather, about licensed vs unlicensed contractors or workers. Specifically the licensed folks who do quality work talk about how to handle being undercut by the fly by nighters. There is also a lot of talk on how the customers can ensure the contractor or trades person they are hiring will do quality work at a fair price.
To me there seems to be an obvious solution to both of these problems, but I've never seen it discussed, and I'm curious as to why.
My solution would be as follows.
Government involvement would be limited to deciding what work requires permits, and managing the administration and enforcement of the permit process. Anyone would be able to pull a permit, but all permitted work would be inspected to ensure it is to code (safe).
As those in the trades are best able to understand what is required for fair price, and quality work the contractor, trades people, handymen etc
would form an association. The requirements for joining the association would be set by the association members, but would include requirements to show that the person / business in question does quality work, meets all legal requirements (pulls permits, etc), is solvent, and is committed to treating the customer fairly. The association would include an arbitration board made up of members, and "regular" folk from the community would could arbitrate in customer / member disputes. This arbitration board would be independent enough that it could make fair decisions and would not be biased either towards the contractors or customers. The arbitrations would be available for anyone to look at (with personal details removed) in order to prove it's fairness. The association would advertise heavily it's requirements for membership and commitment to quality and fairness. More importantly it would enforce it's membership requirements and remove from membership any member who stopped meeting the requirements. The association would NOT set any type of pricing structure that it's members to follow. It would still be up the members to differentiate themselves on price / service / word of mouth advertisement in order to attract customers.
A customer could then choose any of the members, and expect to get a quality, and fair job. However if they decide price was the most important decision, they could choose to hire someone who was not a member of the association, and take all of the associated risks.
Contractors or trades people could choose whether or not to join the association. If they felt the fee was worth the the advertising benefit they would choose to join, if they felt the fee wasn't worth they wouldn't join, or they might choose to form another competing association.
The important think is that both the contractor and customer have complete freedom to choose, without artificial constraints imposed by government.
I realize that there are trade associations that exist, however they are useless to the consumer as they provide no assurance of quality, or fairness. Because of this, they are not really useful as means of advertising.
Comments?
FYI, I'm not a contractor or trades person. I'm a home owner who has designed and almost finished building his house. I've done the majority of the work myself, but have hired a few subcontractors to do things I felt I would be unable to do well enough myself. Other than being behind schedule, everything has gone well, including all my interactions with suppliers and subcontractors.
I know there is a lot of contractors and trades people out there who do great work, and are fair, but it's very difficult to determine who they are. Recommendations work to a certain point, but the people who really know are the other trades people / contractors.