DIY Trade Guidelines And Disclaimer:

All Waltham Forest LETS members are responsible for their own insurance and any costs incurred from using the scheme.

Building and DIY are popular trades on LETS and can be extremely useful. However, things are more prone to go wrong with a trade of this kind than if someone is baking you a cake!

Waltham Forest LETS and its committee members are in no way liable for any costs incurred in members’ trades and members should remember this is a community scheme operating on an exchange of goodwill.

A LETS member who commissions another LETS member to do some DIY or building work is responsible for making appropriate checks on the standard of their work before booking them, just as with an ordinary builder. You may want to ask for pictures of previous work or references for instance.

We recommend that smaller DIY jobs are more appropriate on the LETS scheme than large building jobs.

It is sensible to test someone’s work out on a small job before commissioning something big and/or asking another LETS member who has traded with them about their experience.

We recommend that traders agree between them before the work starts about who is liable if something goes wrong.

If the person is a professional builder they should have insurance, but if they are just offering their services as a handy DIY person, the trader commissioning the work must take financial responsibility for any damage caused accidentally unless agreed otherwise. For instance, if someone putting up some shelves for you accidentally punctured a water pipe behind the wall, you would need to take responsibility for paying a plumber to do the repair or claiming on your insurance.

Any member offering DIY is responsible for their own safety, but the person commissioning them should do all they can to make the working environment safe.