We’ve all heard the horror stories and in fact I hear them most weeks on the LBC Consumer Hour.

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A builder takes a £20,000 deposit and disappears. A new roof starts leaking within weeks. An extension is left half-finished and the homeowner discovers it will cost thousands more to put right.

So the Government’s latest crackdown on rogue traders is welcome.

But there’s a fairly obvious problem. The builders we most need protecting from are unlikely to volunteer to be regulated.

Under new plans, homeowners will be able to search a government-backed database of tradespeople who meet certain standards covering customer service, transparency and dispute........

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