self employed

[Pedroski]

If you have quoted to the customer for the tree work then you are driving the vehicle, and he is not a bona fide subcontractor if he doesnt have an aerial rescue qualified groundy with him who would ideally also do the clearing.

 

This is the thing, though. The only requirement, according to my insurance schedule, for someone to be a bona fide sub-contractor is that they hold their own PL insurance. There is no requirement on my insurance schedule for that sub-contractor to have an aerial rescue qualified groundy, and the whole aerial rescue has nothing to do with public liability, surely? This is something that someone should have from the point of view of H&S, and certainly doesn't determine whether or not they are a bona fide sub-contractor. There have been interesting legal cases in the past where one can be proven to be 'competent' and therefore qualified for the job, without legally requiring any piece of paper to prove that competence.

[Rupe]

Yes I hear what your saying, its all a bit of a mindfield really, so I am tryign to explain it from my understanding.

 

So lets forget about the aerial rescue thing for now. Your example sounds ok, you have hired in a bona fide subcontractor with insurance. But if you are working with him then its not really subcontracted out. Maybe it is, but as you have quoted for the job your insurance will be claimed on first and then they can try and claim from the climbers insurance. If they are successful in that is very hard to say but I would think that your client would be covered by your insurance (and then possibly by the climbers) in case something went wrong, because you seem to have done the right thing by getting a sub contractor with insurance.

 

If you had tree surgery insurance and you got a climber in and did the ground work for him as in your example above then I think (only my opinion) that any claim would stop with you, as he would be seen as an employee and not a bona fide subcontractor and therefore his insurance would not be required.

 

The only way for a landscaper (using your example) to completly remove themselves from the insurance issue is to give the client the number of the tree surgeon (individual or company) that you recomend and then let them organsie the job themselves. If the tree surgeon then gives you some £££ then all well and good.

 

So if you quote and take exactly the same amount of £££ for doing so you become partly liable.

[Pedroski]

 

The only way for a landscaper (using your example) to completly remove themselves from the insurance issue is to give the client the number of the tree surgeon (individual or company) that you recomend and then let them organsie the job themselves. If the tree surgeon then gives you some £££ then all well and good.

 

So if you quote and take exactly the same amount of £££ for doing so you become partly liable.

 

All good, but now you open up another can of worms....... I've seen the "recommend" thing go badly wrong in the past, in several ways. The guy I work with has actually recommended a plumbing firm, who are well known to us, to a customer. The customer was expecting x amount of work over a couple of weeks at a cost of Y pounds. The recommended plumbing firm then managed to stay in there for something like 12 weeks "finding" all sorts of other "urgent" problems and successfully got our long standing customer to pay up tens of thousands of pounds. This then left us in an awkward situation with out customer, who proceeded to please poverty and we lost out on a load of work. I'm half surprised there was no issue of professional negligence cropping up, what with the bloke I work with making the recommendation as a paid service provider!

 

Another way things go wrong with, say, recommending an arb firm and putting the customer in direct contact with them, is that it's all too easy to lose future landscaping work to the arb firm. I'm VERY wary now of this, and will never put customer and another firm in direct contact with each other.

[Rupe]

Yep, lots of cans of worms everywhere!! I agree. I think if you verbally reccomend someone and say you leave it to there judgement if they use that person or not then you dont have any moral/legal problems, but yes I can see where it would leave things awkward!! And if you lose work because of it then that is definatly no good!

 

I know quite a few builders and if my clients ask me for a builder I say NO. Mostly becasue I wouldnt let any of them in my house let alone a clients!!

 

Going back to your earlier example, with your fully insured bona fide subcontractor that you got in to do some work on your site and you were "only" clearing up. IF he cut himself and blead to death in the tree while you were unable to rescue him, then I think you would find out pretty quickly who was in charge on that job.

 

This would of course not be public liability issue, but you would be seen as the employer and be in some serious trouble. I am not suggesting this is likely to happen and I am not saying you shouldnt get a climber in, I am just saying that calling him a bona fide subcontractor is not necessarily going to make every situation all above board.

 

A true bona fide subcontractor is a tree surgery outfit/company in their own right, not an individual with or without PL insurance.