Contractor approval checklist. A printable checklist for approving a contractor — insurance, registration for the trade they are doing, references and what has to be in place before they attend a tenanted property.

Approving a contractor for property work is a narrower question than it looks, because the regulated trades carry their own registration regimes and a general approval says nothing about them. Gas work and electrical work each have a specific position, and checking it against the relevant register rather than taking a certificate at face value is the whole of the exercise.

The register check matters because certificates circulate. An engineer's registration can lapse or be restricted, a certificate can belong to a business the person no longer works for, and the only answer that counts is what the register says on the day you look.

Attending tenanted properties is a section most contractor checklists omit entirely, and it is the one that affects actual people. A contractor letting themselves into an occupied home, without identification, without an appointment the tenant agreed, is a complaint and sometimes considerably worse.

The review date is there because approval decays silently. Insurance lapses, registration expires, the registered individual leaves the business — and an approved contractor list that is never revisited is a record of who was acceptable at some point in the past.