What is a Trusted Pal? What we check, and what we don't yet

When you are choosing someone to work on your home, you want to know their details have been checked. That is what Trusted Pal is for. But a badge is only worth what sits behind it, so here is the honest position: no listing on GotAPal carries a verified badge yet, because we have not finished building the checks, and we will not badge anything we have not checked.

What Trusted Pal will mean

A Trusted Pal will be a trade whose details we have checked against a source, not just taken on trust: their insurance, and the official register for their trade where one exists, such as the Gas Safe Register for gas work. A badge you can buy without those checks would be worse than no badge at all, so it stays off sale until they are real.

What we do check today

• Reviews are confirmed by email. A review is not published or counted until the reviewer confirms it from their inbox, and a business cannot review its own listing.
• Verified jobs come from real payments. A review from a job the customer paid for through ServicePay is marked as a verified job.
• Paid placement is labelled. Top Pal listings are shown first and always marked Featured.

How to check a trade yourself

• Insurance. Ask for their public liability certificate and check the insurer and dates. Our guide to what insurance a tradesperson should have explains what to look for.
• Gas work. Anyone working on gas must be on the Gas Safe Register. See Gas Safe versus general handyman work.
• Everything else. Our checklist for hiring a trade you can trust covers quotes, references and paperwork.

If you are a trade

You can add your insurance and trade registrations to your profile today, so customers can see and check them. When verification opens, trades who have already added them will be first in line. Read how we keep reviews honest, or claim your free listing.