How we check our partners

Listing a business as an EveryVillage partner means telling your neighbours it is worth calling. This page says what we do before we say that, what we do not do, and what happens if something goes wrong.

Before a business becomes a partner

• We have spoken to them. Every partner has talked to us before their page goes up, usually on the phone or in person. There is no form on this site a business can fill in to list itself.
• We confirm they are trading, and for a limited company we look them up at Companies House.
• Where a business claims an accreditation or a registration, such as Gas Safe, NICEIC or the BPCA, we look the number up on the public register rather than taking a logo’s word for it. Where we have done that, the partner’s page says when.
• We ask about insurance, and that it is current.
• For a sole trader with no formal accreditation, we go on reputation in the village. Who has been advertising in the parish magazine for years, who neighbours name when someone asks.
• Every word on a partner page was confirmed with the business. The ordinary listings, the ones without the badge, are a name and a trade from public sources, and they say so.

What the badge does not mean

We do not inspect anyone’s work and we are not party to any job. Whatever you agree with a partner is between you and them, and the Provider Agreement says as much to the business. What we say is who we have checked and who your neighbours recommend. That is the claim, and the whole of it.

Recommendations

• They are written by residents and credited by first name and village, the way you would pass a name over a fence.
• Every one is read by a person before it is published. We decline anything that reads as written by the business, by a friend doing them a favour, or by someone who never used them.
• There are no star ratings. A count of neighbours who recommend a business for a particular job tells you more than a decimal does.
• Partners agree not to offer a discount, a gift or anything else in return for a recommendation.
• Some recommendations are marked as being from a verified customer. A partner can send a customer a one-time link after a job, and a recommendation that arrives through one is marked that way because we know the business chose to ask that person. It is still read before it goes up, and it can still be declined.

When something goes wrong

Tell us. Every partner page has a link near its recommendations that opens a private message to us with the business’s name already filled in, or you can use the contact page. Nothing you write there is published anywhere.

What we do. We tell the partner what the complaint is and hear both sides. We look at what there is to look at, quotes, invoices, photographs and messages, and we check the registers behind any accreditation the business claims. With your agreement we may come and see the work. We do not take a complaint at its word and we do not act on an anonymous one.

What we decide. Only whether the business stays on EveryVillage. Normally that means a chance to put things right. In a serious case, or a repeated one, it means the listing comes down. Where we cannot tell what happened we say so and take no action, and either way we tell you what we decided. It is not a ruling on anything between you and the business, which stays between the two of you.

Who decides. At the moment that is one person, Oliver, who runs EveryVillage and lives in Silchester. There is no panel behind him yet. We would rather say that plainly than call a one-person review independent, and this page will change when the process does.

The record

Since the site opened, updated by hand whenever something changes. The date is the one to trust.

Complaints received

0

Upheld

0

Partners removed

0

Last confirmed 22 September 2026.

The standards a partner agrees to, and the review a complaint gets, are set out in Section 9 of the Provider Agreement.