Ways to find a builder in NZ, compared
Most people find a builder through one of seven channels. Each one is useful, and each one verifies something different. The point of this table is not that any channel is bad: it is that they check different things, and the gaps only show when you lay them side by side. The common thread: most of them tell you about the work, and almost none of them tell you about the company.
| Channel | What it is | What it verifies | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Word of mouth | A recommendation from someone who used the builder. | One customer's real experience of workmanship and reliability. | The company's registration status, solvency, director history or anything that changed since that job. |
| Builderscrack / job platforms | Post the job; tradespeople compete for it. Platform holds reviews from past platform jobs. | Identity on the platform and reviews earned through it. | Court records, insolvency notices, or the directors' history with earlier companies. |
| Master Builders membership | Trade association membership, with an optional 10-year guarantee product on the build. | Membership standing and eligibility for the Master Build Guarantee. | Membership is not a public-record check; a member company's register status and director history still need checking separately. |
| NZ Certified Builders (NZCB) | Association for trade-qualified builders, with the Halo guarantee product. | Trade qualification of the member and eligibility for Halo cover. | Company solvency events, court or regulator findings, or related-company history. |
| Google / Facebook reviews | Public star ratings and comments on the business profile. | That some customers left opinions, positive or negative. | Whether reviewers are real customers, and anything about the legal entity behind the profile. |
| LBP register (lbp.govt.nz) | The official register of Licensed Building Practitioners, searchable by name. | The individual's licence class, status and any disciplinary history. | The COMPANY you contract with: its registration, solvency, directors and their other companies. |
| Public-record background check | Reading the Companies Register, NZ Gazette, courts and regulator records for the company, yourself or through a checking service. | Registration status, insolvency notices, director history across companies, and court or regulator findings on the public record. | Workmanship quality. Records show what happened on paper, not how tidy the tiling is. |
How to combine them
The channels are complementary, not competing. A sensible order: find candidates however suits you (word of mouth, a platform, an association directory), confirm the individual on the LBP register if the work is restricted building work, and then check the COMPANY you are about to contract with against the public record before signing. That last step is the one almost everyone skips, and it is where registration status, insolvency history, the directors' other companies and any court or regulator findings live.
You can do the public-record check yourself for nothing but time: the Companies Register, the NZ Gazette, the LBP register and court lists are all public. Our tool reads the same sources and compiles them into one report, which is the only part of this table we have an interest in, so treat that row accordingly and check our claims against the sources.
Found your builder already?
Run the company through the public record before you sign: registration, insolvency notices, director history, court and regulator findings.
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All descriptions of third-party services are factual summaries of their publicly stated offerings as at 12 July 2026 and may change; check each provider's own site for current detail.