Category: Problems and pitfalls

The warning signs of a dodgy tradesman are mostly about how they arrive, how they want paying, and what they will not put in writing. No single sign proves anything, but two or three together are a good reason to say “let me think about it” and close the door.

This guide is deliberately calm. Most trades in Warwickshire are honest people doing decent work, and you should not need to feel suspicious of everyone who quotes you. What you need is a short list of things to look for, and for each one, what the good version looks like so you can recognise it when you see it.

Is someone knocking on the door a warning sign?

Yes, an unexpected knock offering work is the single most common starting point for rogue trading. Warwickshire Trading Standards’ first tip is simply never to agree to buy goods or services from people who turn up at your door unannounced. The usual offers are roofing, driveways, guttering, gardening and “we noticed a loose tile”.

The good sign: you found them, not the other way round. A trade you contacted, through a recommendation, a search or a directory, who then books a time to come and look, is behaving normally. Every Mendwell visit starts with you booking it, at mendwell.co.uk/book or by phone.

Is “we happened to be in the area” a warning sign?

Yes, because it is a line designed to make you decide quickly. It usually comes with “we have some materials left over from a job down the road” and a price that only works today. Trading Standards notes that these callers like to appear local and genuine, but the addresses they use are often false.

The good sign: a trade who is happy to come back another day. If the offer is real, it will still be real next week, and a local business has no reason to rush you.

Is being asked to pay in cash a warning sign?

Cash on its own is not proof of anything, but cash only is. Citizens Advice says to avoid traders who only accept cash or want everything up front, because it is a sign they may be dishonest or unreliable. Cash leaves no trail, and a trade who insists on it is usually keeping it that way on purpose.

The good sign: a bank transfer to a named business, against a written quote and invoice, with the balance paid when the job is done. We take the balance by bank transfer on completion, and card and bank details never go in a message.

Is no address or company number a warning sign?

Yes. If you cannot find out where a trade is based or what the business is called, you have nobody to go back to if the work fails. A mobile number and a first name is not a business.

The good sign: a full business name, a postal address and, for a limited company, a company number you can check on Companies House in a minute. Mendwell is the trading name of Life Assembly Limited, company number 13828942, based in Nuneaton and working across Warwickshire and the counties either side. That is the level of detail to expect from anyone.

Is pressure a warning sign?

Yes, and it is one of the clearest. “It needs doing today”, “the price goes up tomorrow”, “I can only do it if you decide now” are all ways of stopping you from getting a second opinion.

The good sign: a trade who tells you what is urgent and what can wait, and means it. Some things genuinely cannot wait, such as a leak, but even then a good trade will make it safe and quote properly for the rest.

Is no written quote a warning sign?

Yes. A price said out loud is not a quote, and a job started with nothing in writing is a job where every disagreement is your word against theirs. It also matters legally: for work agreed at your home, you have 14 days to cancel, and the trade must tell you that in writing.

The good sign: a written quote that lists the work line by line, says what is excluded, names the materials and sets out payment terms. At Mendwell the site visit and the written quote are free, with no obligation, and we do not price from photos.

Is not showing insurance a warning sign?

Yes. Public liability insurance is what covers your home if something is damaged during the work. A trade who cannot or will not show a current certificate is either uninsured or hiding something about the cover.

The good sign: a trade who tells you the level of cover without being pushed and can show the certificate. We hold £2,000,000 public liability cover with Hiscox, and any contractor working on our behalf must hold at least £2,000,000 before they step on site.

Are reviews that all read the same a warning sign?

Yes, if you look closely. Twenty five-star reviews posted in the same fortnight, all using the same phrases, all from accounts with no other history, are more likely to have been bought than earned.

The good sign: reviews spread over time, in different voices, mentioning specific work, with the odd four-star review and a sensible reply to it. Real customers write about the door, the fence, the mess being cleared up. They rarely all sound the same.

What should I do if I think I am dealing with a rogue trader?

Do not sign anything, do not pay anything, and take the details. If work has already been done and you have been pressured or overcharged, the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 will pass a rogue trader complaint to Trading Standards. If someone is at the door and you feel threatened, call 999; for anything else, the police on 101.

Who is this for?

Anyone in Warwickshire or the counties either side choosing a trade for the first time, and anyone keeping an eye out for a relative. If you are further away, the signs are the same everywhere, and you are welcome to ask us anything.

The visit and the written quote are free with no obligation. Book at mendwell.co.uk/book or call 07472 281 663. More guides at mendwell.co.uk/guides.

When you search for a handyman in Warwickshire, most of what comes back is a directory: Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People, Bark and the rest. They are useful. They are also a business, and the way they make their money changes the quotes you get from the trades listed on them. Nobody on those sites will tell you that, so here it is.

How do trade directories make their money?

They charge the tradesperson, not you. There are two models. The first is a membership: a monthly or annual fee to have a profile on the site, with the price rising for a bigger or better placed profile. The second is pay per lead: the trade pays a fee every time your enquiry is passed to them, whether or not they win the job, and several trades are usually sent the same enquiry. Some sites combine the two.

The figures are not published on the front page, but they are not secret either. One trade marketing firm writing in April 2026 put a basic Checkatrade membership at around £60 a month, said £100 to £150 a month was common for an upgraded profile, and put lead fees at £5 to £15 for small jobs and £20 to £40 for larger ones. Its worked example was a plumber spending about £400 a month and winning four or five jobs from it, which is roughly £4,800 a year before a single job is done. Treat those as reported figures rather than a price list, but the shape is right: it is a real cost, paid every month, in the hope of work.

Does that cost end up in my quote?

Yes, because there is nowhere else for it to go. A tradesperson paying a few hundred pounds a month to be found has to earn that back across the jobs they win, so it sits inside every quote as a share of overhead, the same as the van and the insurance. The difference is that you are not paying for the work, or for the van that brought the work to your door. You are paying for the introduction.

It shapes quotes in a second way, which is less obvious. On a pay per lead site, three or four trades have each paid to receive your enquiry, and only one of them gets the job. The other two or three have paid for nothing. That pushes some trades towards quoting fast and low to win the lead back, and pushes others towards quoting high to cover all the leads they lost. Either way the number you receive owes something to the directory’s model, not only to your job.

Are directories a bad way to find a tradesperson?

No, and it would be dishonest to say so. A directory profile with a long run of recent, detailed reviews is a real signal, and the checks the bigger sites run on identity and insurance are worth having. We also know that when people ask an AI tool for a handyman near them, the answer is very often read straight off a directory listing, so a good profile there does real work for a trade. If you use one, use it well: read the most recent reviews rather than the star rating, look for photographs of finished jobs rather than stock images, and notice whether the trade replies to reviews, including the poor ones.

What a directory cannot tell you is whether the trade will visit before quoting, what is and is not in the price, or how they handle the things that go wrong. Those are the things that decide whether a job goes well, and you find them out from the trade, not the listing.

Why do new businesses on directories sometimes disappoint?

Because the barrier to being listed is a fee, not a track record. A directory profile can be set up in an afternoon by a business that started last month, and the early reviews on any profile are the easiest to collect. That is not a criticism of new businesses, everyone starts somewhere. It is a reason to read the profile for what it actually shows: how many jobs, how recent, how specific, and whether the reviewer describes the same kind of work you need.

Where does Mendwell stand?

We are not currently paying for a directory listing, and our reviews live on our Google listing where anyone can read them and where we cannot edit them. That may change, because being on one of the main directories is one of the better ways to be found, and if we join one we will say so on this page. What will not change is that we publish our prices here on our own site, so you can see what a job costs before you speak to anyone. As an example, a solid core internal door supplied and fitted into your existing frame is around £205 to £225 all in, and the full breakdown is in our cost guide.

Our prices are set by the job, not by what we spent that month on being found. If a quote from us is higher than one from a directory, it is because of what is in it: a visit first, a fixed price in writing, three hinges on a heavy door, the room protected and cleaned. It is never because of an introduction fee.

What should I ask any tradesperson, directory or not?

Ask whether they visit before they quote, whether the price is fixed once it is in writing, and what is not included. Waste removal is a good test: it is never included in a Mendwell price unless it is a line on the quote, and a quote that does not mention it at all is usually a quote that will grow. Ask to see the insurance certificate. Ask what happens if something is not right afterwards. A trade that answers those four questions plainly is worth having, wherever you found them.

Who this is not for

If you want the cheapest possible number for a small job and are happy to take a chance on who turns up, a lead site will give you three quotes by tomorrow and one of them will be cheap. That is a fair way to buy some kinds of work. It is not how we work, and we would rather say so than pretend.

Want a proper price?

We visit before we quote. The visit takes about half an hour, and you get a fixed price in writing afterwards, with everything that is and is not included written down. We are based in Nuneaton and work across Warwickshire. If you are outside the towns you see us mention, ask anyway.

Book a visit at mendwell.co.uk/book.

Prices reviewed September 2026.

A badly fitted door does not fail on the day. It fails over the next two winters, and by then the trade is gone. Here are the seven things that go wrong with cheap door fitting, why each one happens, and how to see it coming in the quote before anyone picks up a saw.

1. The door drops and catches on the frame

Why it happens. Two hinges on a heavy door, or hinge screws with nothing solid to bite into. The top hinge takes the weight, the screws work loose, the door sags.

How to spot it in the quote. No mention of the number of hinges, or the words “hollow core”. Ask. The answer should be three hinges and a solid door.

2. The door rattles or will not stay shut

Why it happens. The latch and the keep were not lined up properly, or the door was hung to the opening rather than adjusted to close cleanly. Fitting a door is mostly adjustment, and adjustment is what gets skipped when the price is low.

How to spot it. A very short fitting time. A door fitted, hung and adjusted properly is a couple of hours, not forty minutes.

3. Gaps you can see daylight through

Why it happens. The frame is out of square and the door was trimmed to a straight line anyway. Or the door is the wrong size for the opening and was packed out.

How to spot it. A price from a photo. Nobody can tell whether a frame is square from a picture, which is why we visit first and why a quote that skips the visit is a guess.

4. The edges look rough under the paint

Why it happens. The planed edges were left as they came off the saw, or worse, coated in preserver as if the door were a fence post. Internal doors are sanded smooth with the sharp edges eased so the paint goes on cleanly.

How to spot it. The quote does not say the door will be ready for decorating. Ask what “finished” means.

5. The frame was the real problem and nobody said

Why it happens. A loose, split or out-of-square lining will not hold a new door well however good the door is. A cheap fit hangs the new door in the old frame and hopes.

How to spot it. No mention of the frame at all. A good quote will say either that the frame is sound or that it needs replacing and what that costs.

6. Dust and damage everywhere else

Why it happens. Doors are trimmed and recesses are cut in your hallway. Without sheeting and dust protection the whole landing gets it, and a dropped door marks a floor.

How to spot it. Nothing in the quote about protecting the room or cleaning up. It is not free, so if it is not priced it is not planned.

7. Extras on the day

Why it happens. The cheap headline price left out the handles, the latch, the rubbish, or the second coat of primer, and each one turns up as an extra once the old door is off.

How to spot it. A price with no description under it. Our quotes list the door, the hinges, the latch and handles, the fitting, the adjustment and the finishing, so the number means something. Taking the old door away is a separate priced line, never hidden inside the total and never added on the day.

What a proper door fitting looks like

A visit first. A solid core door, three hinges, new latch and lever handles. Trimmed to the opening, recesses cut cleanly, hung, and adjusted until it closes without rattling and stays where you leave it. Edges sanded ready for paint. The room sheeted before and cleaned after. One fixed price in writing, around £205 to £225 supplied and fitted into a sound existing frame. Full breakdown in our internal door cost guide.

Want a proper price?

Book a visit at mendwell.co.uk/book. About half an hour, and you get a fixed price in writing.

Mendwell is a property maintenance service based in Nuneaton, working across Warwickshire. If you are outside the towns you see us mention, ask anyway.

Prices reviewed September 2026.

In England there is no rule that says the fence on the left, or the right, is yours. The only thing that settles it is the paperwork for your property, and in a lot of cases the paperwork is silent, which is why so many fence arguments end in a shrug.

This guide sets out what the rules actually are, what they are not, and what you can sensibly do when a panel has blown down and the person next door is not reaching for their wallet. We fix and replace fences across Warwickshire, so we see this conversation a lot. Most of it can be sorted with a cup of tea rather than a solicitor.

Is the fence on the left always mine?

No. The “left-hand side as you look from the road” idea is a myth. HM Land Registry’s own guidance says there is no legal foundation for beliefs like this.

The same goes for the other rules of thumb you will hear: that the side with the posts showing belongs to the neighbour, that the “good side” faces away from the owner, or that whoever built it owns it. Any of these might happen to be true on your street because that is how the builder chose to do it. None of them is a rule.

How do I find out who owns the fence?

Look at your title documents. The transfer deed or conveyance from when the plot was first sold off may say who is responsible for each boundary, and if it does, that is your answer.

• Your title register and title plan can be downloaded from HM Land Registry for a few pounds each. The plan on its own rarely helps, because it shows a general boundary, not the exact line.
• Look for a T mark on the deed plan. A T drawn on the inside of a boundary line usually means that owner is responsible for that boundary. A T on both sides, sometimes called an H mark, usually means it is shared. HM Land Registry is clear that a T mark only carries weight if the wording of the deed refers to it.
• Your neighbour’s title may say something yours does not. It is worth buying both.

If neither set of documents mentions the fence, then legally it is not settled. At that point the honest answer is that a solicitor, or a formal boundary agreement with your neighbour, is the only way to nail it down, and for a fence panel that is rarely worth the cost.

Do I have to have a fence at all?

Usually not. There is no general legal duty in England to put up or maintain a fence around your garden. The exceptions are specific: a deed may contain a covenant that says you must keep a boundary fenced, you may need to fence a swimming pool or keep livestock in, and a fence that has become dangerous can be reported to the council.

So if the deeds say the fence is your neighbour’s and it is falling apart, they are not automatically breaking the law by leaving it. That surprises people, but it is the position.

Does the Party Wall Act cover fences?

No. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 covers party walls in buildings, masonry garden walls that sit astride the boundary, and excavation near a neighbour’s foundations. The government’s explanatory booklet says plainly that it does not include wooden fences or hedges. So there is no notice to serve and no surveyor to appoint over a run of feather edge.

The fence has blown down. Who pays?

Whoever owns it, if the deeds say. If they do not say, nobody is obliged to pay, and the practical question becomes who wants it back up more.

A few things worth knowing before you knock on the door:

• Home insurance rarely helps. The Association of British Insurers says storm damage to fences, hedges and gates is generally not covered by standard home policies. Check yours, but do not count on it.
• If the fence is theirs, you cannot make them repair it, but you can ask. Citizens Advice suggests talking face to face first, keeping a note of what was agreed, and offering a compromise such as splitting the cost of the new panels.
• If it is shared, or nobody knows, splitting the cost is the normal outcome and usually the cheapest one for both of you.
• If they will not budge and you want a fence, you can put up your own on your side of the line, right next to theirs. You must not damage or remove their fence to do it, and you lose an inch or two of garden, but it ends the argument.
• Mediation through the council or a local mediation service is far cheaper than a solicitor. Citizens Advice describes going to a solicitor over a fence as a last resort, and an expensive one.

Can I paint or fix my side of the neighbour’s fence?

Not without asking. If the fence is theirs, it is theirs on both faces. Screwing a trellis to it, painting it, or leaning a raised bed against it all need their agreement first.

What we do when we come out to a blown-down fence

We come and look before we quote, and the visit and the written quote are free. We will tell you whether the panels can go back in, whether the posts have gone, and what it costs either way. We do not price fences from photos because a photo cannot tell us whether a post is rotten at ground level.

We will also say if it is a job you can do yourself. Dropping a new panel into sound concrete posts is a two-person afternoon and needs no special skill. Replacing a rotten timber post is harder, and a whole run is where most people call someone.

If the fence turns out to be shared, we are happy to write a quote that both households can look at. Who pays what is between you and your neighbour. Taking the old panels away is a priced line on the quote, not something we include by default.

We cover Warwickshire and the counties either side from our base in Nuneaton. If you are further out, ask anyway. Book a visit at mendwell.co.uk/book or call 07472 281 663, and there are more plain guides at mendwell.co.uk/guides.

A garden gate drops for one of four reasons: the hinge screws have pulled out, the post it hangs on has moved, the gate itself has shrunk, or it has no diagonal brace, or one fitted the wrong way round. Most of the time it is the first one, and you can fix it yourself in an afternoon with a screwdriver and a few longer screws.

The trick is working out which of the four you have before you start, because the fixes are different. Here is how we go about it on gates across Warwickshire, and where the line sits between a gate job and a post job.

Why has my gate dropped?

The latch side has dropped because something on the hinge side has given way.

• Hinge screws pulling out. A gate is a heavy weight hung off a handful of screws, and the top hinge takes nearly all of it. Short screws, screws into damp softwood, or screws into the old holes of a previous hinge all work loose over a few years of slamming. This is the commonest cause by a distance.
• The post has moved. A timber post rots at ground level and starts to lean. A concrete post can lean too if the ground was never compacted around it. Either way the hinge side tilts and the latch side follows it down.
• Timber shrinkage. A new softwood gate hung in a wet spring can lose several millimetres across its width by August as it dries. Joints open, the frame goes out of square, and the far corner drops.
• No brace, or a brace fitted the wrong way. A diagonal brace should run from the bottom of the hinge side up to the top of the latch side. Fitted that way it is in compression and holds the far corner up. Fitted the other way it sags as if the brace were not there.

How do I tell which one it is?

Look at the hinges first, then the post, then the gate.

1. Open the gate halfway, hold the latch edge and lift it. If the hinge plates rock, the fixings are loose. If the hinge is solid but the gate still moves, the gate’s joints are loose.
2. Hold a spirit level against the post. If the post is out of plumb and the gate is square to it, the post is the problem. Push the post: if it moves at ground level, the base has gone.
3. Look at the diagonal brace, if there is one. Bottom hinge to top latch is right. The other way is wrong.
4. Measure the gate corner to corner both ways. If the diagonals differ by more than a few millimetres, the gate has racked out of square.

How do I fix hinge screws that have pulled out?

Replace them with longer, thicker ones into fresh timber. Prop the gate and remove the hinge. If the old holes are chewed, plug them with glued hardwood dowel, let it set, then drill fresh pilot holes. Use screws at least 50 millimetres long, or coach screws on a heavy gate. On a timber post, coach bolts right through the post with a washer behind are better still and do not pull out.

If the hinge itself is bent, replace it, and go one size up from what was fitted.

How do I fix a gate that has racked out of square?

Pull the frame square, then fit a brace, or turn the wrong one round. With the gate off and on a flat surface, push the dropped corner up until the diagonals match, then screw a brace in from the bottom hinge corner to the top latch corner. If the joints are loose, glue and screw each one while it is square.

A steel anti-sag kit, a wire with a turnbuckle across the same diagonal, does the same job on a gate too thin for a timber brace.

Can I just adjust the hinges?

Sometimes. On hook-and-band hinges you can pack the top hook out with a washer, or fit adjustable hooks, to lift the latch side a fraction. It is a shim, not a repair: if the screws are loose underneath it will drop again.

When is it a post job, not a gate job?

When the post moves at the base, the gate is not the problem and no amount of hinge work will hold. A timber post that is soft at ground level, or a concrete post that rocks in its hole, needs digging out and re-setting or replacing.

This is where most people stop doing it themselves. Digging out a concreted post is heavy work, the hole needs to be around 600 millimetres deep, and the new post has to be held plumb while the post mix sets. A repair spur, a short concrete or steel post concreted in beside the rotten one and bolted to it, is cheaper where the post is sound above ground.

Signs it is the post, not the gate: the gate hangs square to the post but the post leans, the post moves when pushed, the timber at ground level is soft under a screwdriver, or the gate has been rehung before and dropped again within a year.

What we do

We come and look before we quote, and the visit and written quote are free with no obligation. On a dropped gate that means a few minutes with a spirit level and a screwdriver, after which we can tell you whether it is a rehang, a new gate on the old posts, or a post job. We price it as a fixed job from the visit rather than turning up on our service rate, because a gate that needs a new post is a different afternoon from one that needs four screws. If it is four screws, we will say so, and you may decide to do it yourself. Old gates and posts stay with you unless the quote includes taking them away as a priced line.

We cover Warwickshire and the counties either side from our base in Nuneaton. If you are further out, ask anyway. Book a visit at mendwell.co.uk/book or call 07472 281 663, and there are more plain guides at mendwell.co.uk/guides.