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How to check that business

Fact: There is no organsiation or association that has jurisdiction in governing, controlling, policing or registering any tree businesses or arborist. Only the government has that power.

Hiring of a good reputable tree business need not be a daunting experience in this day and age. Although the industry does have many regulations and standards to comply to many who work within it are either ignorant or defiant of complying. This page discusses what to look for when engaging a tree service business, contractor or arborist. You do not want to become another sucker of shonky operators, which seems to be on every street corner waiting for the innocent public to prey on.

The best indicators are the obvious one, did you ring the business for a quote or did some-one just turn up on your door step trying to sell you their services? Are they a registered business? The Australian Tree Association believes in guiding you, the public, on how to protect your assets, following the principle of "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" you can find out if the company you are dealing with is a registered business ABN/ACN using the link below, this is the one and only search you need to do to validate the business registration details.

Step 1

Check registration of the entity on this link.

Once you have clarified the company you are dealing with is registered you need to check for insurances such as public liability, professional indemnity and workers compensation protection for all on site otherwise you could be liable for these workers if an accident happens on your property, certificates of currency is only the first step. Do not forget with modern day computer software it is easy to photoshop this certificate so you need to ring the insurance company/broker to check the certificate is authentic.

Step 2

Use the following links to validate Workcover or sight their documentation.

Step 3

Ring the insurance company or broker to validate their liablity insurance coverage just in case something does go wrong. If they cannot produce a copy with phone number then ask what company or broker they are with, it is very unusual if they do not know that.

Step 4

The next thing to investigate is the qualifications of the actual people undertaking the work. Remember only the individual can be qualified.

Often business will make generic statements like, "one of our qualified staff" but for all you know they use a contractor once a year and claim he's "on staff". You need to check the qualifications of the actual person doing the work. You would think like most professionals who display their qualifications (doctors, dentists etc) people would be proud to do the same, so look for qualifications. There's two examples here and here. We encourage other businesses and individuals to display their certificates on their websites.

Lodging complaints

Most of the time contracts run smoothly and both parties walk away happy and content knowing they did a good job and have another satisfied customer. The customer during conversation with friends and work collegues can recommend this company as they have had good dealings with them, word of mouth is a strong indicator of a good company. Unfortunately this does not always happen so you need to make a complaint to an authority that can actually do something about it.

Australian Tree Association will not accept complaints as we have no legal jurisdiction or power like the government, it is written in our Constitution (section 52 Disputes):-

  1. The Company nor its Directors shall be in any way involved in, whether by negotiation or otherwise in any dispute between a Member and the Members customer.
  2. The Company may dismiss complaints as vexatious.
  3. The Company reserves the right to not respond to complaints unless required to by law.

Below are the links to various state departments where you can make your complaint:-

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