"Approved Code": What the Cowboy Builder Crackdown Means for Your Renovation
Why cowboy builders are back in the news
Anyone who has spoken to a friend or neighbour about a renovation gone wrong will recognise the story: a deposit paid upfront, a contractor who disappears halfway through, and a homeowner left chasing money that was never coming back. It is a common enough experience that the government has now stepped in directly, with new figures showing that more than one in four UK adults have had problems with home improvement work in the past eighteen months, with unexpected costs averaging around £750 per household and an estimated £10.3 billion lost across the UK to unfair practices in home and garden work in a single year.
In response, the government has announced two new measures aimed squarely at rogue traders: a Trusted Payments scheme launching this month, and a voluntary Approved Code for builders due to roll out later in the year. Both are worth understanding, not because they change how Bayocorp already operates, but because clients are likely to start asking about them.
What the Trusted Payments scheme actually does
The Trusted Payments system is a payment protection mechanism that over 100,000 traders are expected to have access to by the end of September. Rather than a homeowner handing over a large sum upfront, money is held and released in stages as agreed project milestones are completed. In principle, this protects the client's funds if a contractor stops work, underperforms, or disappears entirely before the job is finished.
For homeowners, the appeal is obvious: it removes the leap of faith that comes with paying a stranger a deposit before any work has started. For established contractors, it is less of a shift than it might sound, because staged payment against completed work is already how most reputable firms structure their contracts. What the scheme really does is formalise a protection that good practice already offers, and make it visible and accessible to homeowners who wouldn't otherwise know to ask for it.
What the Approved Code covers
The Approved Code is a voluntary certification, managed by the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman, that allows builders to demonstrate they meet defined standards of customer service, transparency and dispute resolution. It is expected to be live by the end of the year. Signing up will give firms a recognised mark that homeowners can check before appointing a contractor, alongside an independent route for resolving disputes if something goes wrong.
For a company doing legitimate work, this is a straightforward box to tick rather than a burden, since it largely codifies practices — clear contracts, responsive communication, a proper complaints process — that any serious contractor should already have in place.
Why voluntary is not the same as regulated
It is worth being realistic about what these schemes will and won't achieve. Both are voluntary. The Federation of Master Builders has already warned that, without statutory licensing, a voluntary scheme "however well intended, is likely to struggle to gain traction" against traders who have no interest in signing up to any code in the first place. In other words, the builders most likely to cause problems are also the least likely to opt in.
That doesn't make the schemes pointless, Trusted Payments in particular gives homeowners a genuinely useful tool regardless of who they hire — but it does mean the underlying advice for choosing a contractor hasn't actually changed. Homeowners still need to do their own checks rather than assuming a government-branded scheme has done that work for them.
What to check regardless of any new scheme
Some of this overlaps directly with what the new measures are trying to formalise, and it is worth treating it as the baseline rather than waiting for a scheme to catch up:
- Ask to see public liability insurance in the contractor's own trading name, not a vague assurance that "we're covered"
- Insist on a written contract that sets out scope, programme and a staged payment schedule, not a verbal agreement or a one-line quote on a text message
- Avoid large upfront deposits — a reasonable structure ties payment to work completed, not to work promised
- Check trade association membership and ask for references from recent, comparable jobs, not just a portfolio of finished photos
- Get a proper quotation with a defined scope rather than a rough estimate, since vague pricing is where disputes usually start
None of this requires waiting for the Approved Code to launch. It is simply how a well-run project should already be procured.
How Bayocorp already builds this in
Staged payments tied to agreed milestones, a clearly defined scope before pricing, and a written contract are standard practice on every Bayocorp project, not a response to a new government scheme. Clients get visibility over what they're paying for and when, which is exactly the protection Trusted Payments is designed to formalise for the wider market. If the Approved Code becomes a recognised standard once it launches, it is likely to sit comfortably alongside how the business already works, rather than requiring any real change in approach.
What this means if you're planning a renovation now
If a renovation is already on the cards, there is no need to wait for either scheme to go live before starting the process of finding a contractor. The practical checks above apply today, and a reputable firm will already be structuring payments in stages and putting a proper contract in front of you without being asked. What the news does usefully do is put payment protection and contractor standards higher up the agenda for anyone about to commission work which is no bad thing, given how much money is currently being lost to the minority of traders who cause the problem in the first place.
Bayocorp works with homeowners, landlords and property professionals across London and the South East, providing refurbishment, cost planning, project management and construction delivery, with staged payments and clearly scoped contracts as standard on every project.
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