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Vetting Contractors & Professionals
Vetting a European professional comes down to a few verifiable facts: a current licence on the national registry, liability insurance in force today, an authentic public review history, and no unresolved formal complaints. These guides show how to run those checks country by country. Veted does the review analysis for you and surfaces the credentials a business publishes; the registry check is one you should still run yourself, and these guides show you where.
17 articles
Why You Should Never Hire an Unvetted Contractor in Europe
A walk-through of the genuine financial and legal exposure that comes with hiring on price alone, and the European-specific traps that are easy to miss.
How to Vet a General Contractor in Europe: The Five Checks That Separate a Builder from a Liability
A plumber touches your pipes; a general contractor touches your money, your schedule, and every other trade on the job. The five checks - registration, insurance, qualification, financial health, references - that tell you which one you are hiring, and how to lock them into the contract.
How Do You Know If a Contractor Is Trustworthy? The Questions That Actually Work
Insurance, trade-body membership, references, and the financial-health question almost nobody asks, the verification sequence that works in any market, especially one you do not know.
How to Vet a Real Estate Agent in Europe
The four checks that matter, the three that are theatre, and a country-by-country list of the registries serious buyers should know.
How to Read a European Contractor Licence, Country by Country
A practical reference for verifying contractor credentials across 24 European countries, what each registry actually proves, and what it does not.
Electrician Certifications in Europe: What to Actually Check
Beyond the framed certificate on the wall, the European inspection bodies, periodic checks, and notifications that separate competent installers from the rest.
How to Choose a Heat-Pump Installer in Europe (the Grants Hinge on It)
The same heat pump can cut your bills or drain your electricity - the difference is the install. Why the grant is tied to a certified installer, why sizing and flow temperature decide everything, and the checks that find an engineer rather than a box-shifter.
Why You Can’t Trust Google Reviews Alone Anymore
Review fraud became an industry. Filtered five-star ratings, paid removals, and the one signal a star average will never show you, whether the licence and insurance behind the business are actually current.
The Top Five Contractor Scams Targeting European Homeowners
From the deposit-and-disappear job to the door-to-door roof "spotter", the five patterns that show up across every European market and how to spot them in the first conversation.
How to Vet a Plumber in Europe: The Checks That Separate a Professional from a Cowboy
Certification by country, the pressure test that catches half of all leaks, the emergency-callout trap, and the red flags that show up in the first phone call - how to hire a plumber you will not regret.
How to Vet a Roofer in Europe: The Trade Scammers Love Most
A roof problem is invisible, expensive, and feels urgent - the perfect recipe for being ripped off. Why you never hire the roofer who knocks, how to make them prove the fault, and the checks (insurance at height, real references, proper access) that sort the trade.
How to Verify a Contractor’s Insurance in Europe (Before It Becomes Your Problem)
Generic public liability is not the ten-year structural cover France and Spain require. How to read a certificate, match it to the legal entity on your quote, and spot the gap that lands on you two winters later.
Registered, Verified, Vetted: What Each Word Actually Proves in Europe
Three words that sound interchangeable and are not. What a commercial-register entry, a document check, and a full vet each guarantee - and the gap between them that costs European homeowners the most.
Is Your Builder Actually Registered? The Official Register to Check in Every European Country
Anyone can paint 'licensed and insured' on a van - what they cannot fake is a place on a public register. The one national list to search in each major European country, what it proves, and the trade licence that sits on top, from Germany's Handwerksrolle to France's RNE and Denmark's CVR.
Ripped Off by a Contractor? The Real Playbook for What to Do Next
Stop the payments, document everything, and work the ladder - a formal demand, their trade body, their insurer, a consumer authority, then the courts. The honest, step-by-step guide to limiting the damage, with a straight reality check on what you can actually recover.
The Builder's Ten Year Guarantee Across Europe, and Why It Barely Exists in Britain
In most of continental Europe the law forces builders to stand behind structural work for a decade, often with insurance behind it. Checking that cover is one of the strongest vetting signals a foreign owner has.
Finding an Estate Agent in a Country You Do Not Live In
The most important fact about the agent showing you a property abroad is one almost no buyer asks about: across most of Europe they are paid by, and act for, the seller. What a buyer’s agent really is, where dual agency is legal, the registration to verify in each country, and the one thing you must never tell them.