Compliance
NHBRC enrolment requirements, and who actually enrols
The builder registers. The home is enrolled. Two different acts, and in practice the person selling the unit is the one exposed when the second is skipped.
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All resources
Contractor vetting
Compliance
What cidb grading you need for a R2 million contract
The answer has two halves and most contractors only check one, which is why a current registration still loses the appointment at scope review.
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Compliance
What a plumbing compliance certificate actually covers
An accredited person inspected specified work and found it met the standard that day. Everything outside those words is not covered by the page.
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Compliance
Do I need to register with the NHBRC to build houses?
If you build homes in South Africa, the firm registers with the NHBRC and each home is enrolled. Gauteng's next housing lines make that urgent.
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Compliance
What happens after you apply to a contractor panel
Nothing visible happens for a long stretch. What is running in that time is a set of queries to outside registers, each answering at its own pace.
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Compliance
How to get on a preferred supplier list, and stay on
Getting on a list takes a morning. Being called off one depends on something the Competition Commission has now measured properly.
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Compliance
Contractor accreditation in South Africa: who grants it
There is no single contractor accreditation in South Africa, only trade registers, each buyer's own list, and the check a client relies on.
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Compliance
How to verify a cidb registration before you appoint
A certificate shows a firm was registered on the day it was printed. The register answers today, and grade, class and status all have to match the job.
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Compliance
How to check if a plumber is registered in South Africa
The register answers in two minutes, and a comment window closing 24 October may make it decide who hears your complaint when the work fails.
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Cost & decisions
What to check before hiring a contractor
Britain's new trusted trader scheme is voluntary. South Africa already has five registers, and a deposit rule that only bites once the money has gone.
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Cost & decisions
How to join a contractor panel in South Africa
Six public buyers had built-environment panels open on 29 September 2026, and a panel place is applied for like a tender but paid for like a promise.
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Compliance
Contractor vetting checklist, and what eThekwini skipped
A Special Tribunal set aside housing appointments the SIU valued at around R30 million. Read the ruling backwards and it is a list of the checks nobody ran.
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Property & facilities
Approved contractor list, and who builds one
Eighteen panels on one September day's tender board, and a landlord with 18.6% of its Gauteng offices empty. Both sides were building lists.
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Compliance
Contractor compliance check South Africa: five registers
The check is the same five registers for one firm or twenty. A panel makes it recur, and a buyer running seven identical tenders pays for it seven times.
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Compliance
How to find a reliable contractor in South Africa
A cidb grade is a claim the regulator can reopen. We find a reliable one with a dated register check and the habits no register records.
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Compliance
Who must be SACPCMP registered on a construction site?
The registration is personal, it attaches to the safety officer the contractor appoints, and a client checks the named person against the council, not the firm.
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Cost & decisions
Find vetted contractors in Johannesburg, trade by trade
Start with the trade, because the shortage is uneven. Here is what our network could put on a Johannesburg site on 21 September 2026, and where it could not.
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Property & facilities
Maintenance contractors for bodies corporate
The Act makes trustees maintain the common property. It does not say how to find the contractor, compare the quotes or check the registers first. This does.
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Compliance
Letter of good standing, what it actually covers
It covers the contractor's own employees for injury at work. It does not cover your tenants, your visitors or a child hurt on your property.
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Compliance
Contractor panel registration: what to have ready
The application takes an hour. What takes three weeks is chasing documents that could not be issued until something else existed first.
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Compliance
The cidb blacklist and your live contract
The Minister counts 52 contractors off the cidb register against two in its first 22 years, and the gazette is already ahead of him.
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Compliance
Appointments under the Construction Regulations
Two written appointments under the Construction Regulations are the client's. The rest belong to the contractor. Investigators went looking for that paperwork.
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Compliance
Who may issue an electrical CoC in South Africa
A GreenCard is not a registration, and the PV installer holding one may have no statutory authority to do the electrical work on your roof.
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Compliance
The restricted suppliers list follows the director
Treasury has recorded 35 companies and 45 directors after Eskom's referrals, and a listed name walks into the next company you register.
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Compliance
How to vet a contractor in South Africa
Four of the five checks that decide whether a contractor may lawfully work on your site are free, and most clients run only one of them.
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The Arabella Brief
What changed this week, and what it costs you on Monday.
One email on a Friday, covering the week from Friday to Thursday so the week is closed when it is written. What actually changed, everything with a date on it, one development run through what it means for a contractor with forty people, and what we got wrong. A thin week is a short issue.