Edinburgh Builders — AskBaily Partner Programme, Zero Lead Fees

Edinburgh is a ramping AskBaily metro and structurally unlike any other UK city we route — because Scotland runs an entirely separate building-control regime from England and Wales. There are no Approved Documents here. The governing code is the Scottish Building Standards Technical Handbook — Domestic and Non-Domestic editions, Sections 0–7 — administered under the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 and enforced through Edinburgh Council's Building Standards service on a Building Warrant-plus-Completion-Certificate basis, not an England-style Building Control sign-off. Layer on the fact that the Old Town and New Town form a single UNESCO World Heritage Site under Historic Environment Scotland oversight, roughly 4,500 listed buildings inside the central cordon, a housing stock that is 60%+ pre-1919 tenement flats governed by the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 and its Tenement Management Scheme for common repairs, and you have a regulatory operating environment where a routine New Town kitchen refit can touch four statutory regimes before a stud goes in. AskBaily's Edinburgh programme is built for those realities: zero lead fees, 1-to-1 matched routing, verified SELECT or NICEIC Scotland electrical plus SNIPEF plumbing registration on file, Gas Safe cover, documented Building Warrant experience with Edinburgh Council, and Listed Building Consent or Conservation Area casework where scope triggers it.

Edinburgh lead economics — Rated People + Checkatrade + MyBuilder Scotland maths

Angi doesn't sell Scottish leads. The Edinburgh ecosystem is MyBuilder, Rated People, and Checkatrade — the same platforms that dominate London, but with thinner partner rosters per postcode and sharper credit pricing on high-value tenement work. MyBuilder charges per-quote credits roughly £2–£12 (3–5 for a bathroom quote, 8–12 for a full tenement refurbishment). Rated People charges per-lead £5 up to £60+ for listed-building and New Town renovation enquiries in EH1, EH2, EH3, EH8, EH9 and EH10. Checkatrade runs £40–£100/month membership converting to an effective £40–£75 per qualified lead once you divide membership across closed work.

Blended Edinburgh close rates sit at 10–18%, pulled low by the same shared-quote dynamic London has — homeowners are collecting 3–5 quotes by design and the platforms' commercial incentive is to sell that enquiry to as many trades as possible. Break-even: £55 effective cost per lead ÷ 0.13 close rate = roughly £420 platform CAC per completed job. On a £22K New Town kitchen refit that's 1.9% of revenue; on a £140K tenement whole-flat refurbishment with bathroom reconfig and Building Warrant, about 0.30%. The arithmetic only flatters itself if you ignore the dead credits — £55 × 5 competing quotes means about £275 of every closed CAC is paid on quotes you lost, charged upfront on every enquiry including tyre-kickers who are already part of the platform's monetisation model, not your pipeline.

How AskBaily Edinburgh matching differs

The homeowner opens a chat with Baily, our Gemini-powered scope agent. Baily runs Edinburgh-aware scope discovery: area (Old Town vs New Town vs Leith vs Stockbridge vs Morningside vs Bruntsfield vs Marchmont vs Portobello vs Corstorphine is not the same regime — Listed coverage, Conservation Area boundaries, tenement density and stair ownership structure all vary); property type (Georgian New Town townhouse, pre-1919 traditional tenement flat with common stair, Victorian or Edwardian villa, Colonies terrace, 20th-century four-in-a-block, new-build flat); Listed status (Category A, B or C under Historic Environment Scotland) and World Heritage Site or Conservation Area position; project type (kitchen or bathroom refit, tenement full refurbishment, stone and lime re-pointing, sash-and-case window restoration, dormer window formation, loft conversion, common-stair repair under Tenement Management Scheme, whole-flat reconfiguration including wall removal, extension to villa or colonies stock, heritage restoration); budget in GBP inclusive of VAT at 20% with awareness of the reduced 5% rate on qualifying residential renovation on properties empty for 2+ years; timeline; and crucially the ownership matrix on the building — how many flats share the stair, whether a written Tenement Burdens title applies, whether an existing Factor is instructed.

Baily writes an Edinburgh-specific scope document. The matching engine filters the partner roster by six signals:

1. Trade-body registration genuinely matching scope — Federation of Master Builders Scotland region or CIOB for main contractors, Gas Safe Register for any gas work (statutory UK-wide, non-negotiable), SELECT or NICEIC Scotland Part P Competent Person registration for notifiable electrical work under Section 4 of the Technical Handbook, SNIPEF for plumbing and heating.
2. Building Warrant process fluency with Edinburgh Council — documented Warrant applications lodged and Completion Certificates produced, with working knowledge of when a Warrant is required (most alterations altering structural elements, fire compartmentation, drainage, heating systems or means of escape) and when it isn't.
3. Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 common-repair experience — Sharing Obligation arithmetic, Tenement Management Scheme voting under Rule 2, and practical working knowledge of scaffolding and access across multi-owner stairs. Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 scaffold and skip licence submissions to Edinburgh Council's roads authority.
4. Listed Building Consent and Conservation Area casework — traditional lime-mortar re-pointing, sash-and-case window overhaul, slate and lead roofing, ironmongery retention — with Historic Environment Scotland engagement where Category A applies and dormer window approvals under New Town and Old Town design guidance.
5. Heritage-literate Scottish Building Standards Section 6 (Energy) and Section 7 (Sustainability) balancing — practical ability to hit modern U-values on pre-1919 solid-wall stone construction without destroying the breathable fabric, internal-insulation specifications appropriate to lime plaster, and secondary-glazing strategies that satisfy HES.
6. Partner category preference (a New Town Georgian specialist doesn't get routed a Portobello villa extension).

One Edinburgh partner is introduced. No auction, no "we sold your number to five of our members," no homeowner fielding four scheduling calls in a single evening. Zero lead fees to the contractor.

Edinburgh-specific partner requirements

Non-negotiable:

1. Registered UK limited company or sole trader with live HMRC CIS status for subcontractor payments where applicable, UTR plus VAT registration on file (VAT threshold £90,000 annual taxable turnover).
2. Gas Safe Register engineer on staff or on a documented subcontracting agreement for any gas work — no legal alternative in the UK, unregistered gas work is a criminal offence.
3. SELECT (Electrical Contractors' Association of Scotland) or NICEIC Scotland Part P Competent Person registration on staff or subcontract for notifiable electrical work under Section 4 of the Scottish Building Standards Technical Handbook. Note: Scotland does not operate the same CPS self-certification regime as England — most notifiable work in Scotland goes on a Building Warrant and is signed off by the council, so a registered electrical installer plus a Warrant is the norm rather than an England-style CPS self-cert.
4. SNIPEF (Scottish & Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers' Federation) or WaterSafe registration for plumbing and heating work.
5. Public Liability minimum £2M (£5M strongly preferred for any project touching the common stair or an adjoining tenement), Employers' Liability at the statutory £5M for any work with employees, Professional Indemnity where design-and-build scope applies.
6. For Tier-1 GC routing (jobs ≥ £25K): minimum five completed Edinburgh residential projects in the last 24 months with Completion Certificates issued by Edinburgh Council Building Standards, verifiable past-client contact for spot-check.
7. Scottish Building Contract Committee (SBCC) contract literacy — standard-form SBCC Minor Works, Homeowner Contract, or Scottish Building Contract where scope warrants, rather than JCT or improvised Ts&Cs that don't reflect Scots law.

Preferred (raises matching weight):

8. FMB or Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) working relationships for design-and-build lanes, particularly for dormer formation and tenement reconfiguration where an Architect-led Warrant application is the norm.
9. CHAS, SMAS, or Constructionline accreditation for commercial overlap and heritage frameworks.
10. Documented Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 common-repair project history — served notice under the Tenement Management Scheme, sharing-obligation invoices issued and collected across co-owners, and working relationships with local factoring firms.
11. Listed Building Consent applications landed with Edinburgh Council and Historic Environment Scotland casework where Category A applies. Category B and C(S) coverage across the New Town First and Second extensions, the Old Town, Marchmont, Stockbridge, Dean Village and parts of Morningside is functionally universal inside the Conservation Area.
12. Registered with Historic Environment Scotland Traditional Skills framework or Edinburgh World Heritage panel for Category A and World Heritage Site casework.

Exclusivity model

Edinburgh is a ramping AskBaily metro as of 2026, split by area-cluster and category rather than a single roster. The first 2–3 Tier-1 partners per cluster × category receive category-exclusive routing: every matched scope in that cluster × category goes to ONE partner. Clusters run roughly Old Town + New Town (EH1, EH2, EH3 — UNESCO core), North (Stockbridge, Inverleith, Dean Village, Canonmills), Leith + Shore (EH6), South Central (Marchmont, Bruntsfield, Morningside, Merchiston), East (Portobello, Joppa, Musselburgh), West (Corstorphine, Murrayfield, Ravelston), Southside (Newington, The Grange, Prestonfield). Categories run tenement whole-flat refurbishment, kitchen/bath refit, common-repair and stone/lime works, sash-and-case restoration, dormer formation and loft conversion, Listed Building / Category A–C casework, villa extension, whole-house refurbishment. Early-wave partners hold their slot as long as completion rate and homeowner satisfaction stay above threshold, and retain first-right-of-refusal on overflow.

Take-rate economics

AskBaily take-rate is tiered by project value and paid at Practical Completion — not at match, not at contract signature, not at first-stage payment:

• 15% on jobs £5K–£25K
• 12% on jobs £25K–£60K
• 10% on jobs £60K–£120K
• 8% on jobs £120K+

On a typical New Town tenement kitchen-and-bathroom refurbishment at £85K, the 10% take-rate is £8,500 — paid on a completed, Completion-Certificated, paid-in-full job. Lead-credit platforms charge on enquiry regardless of outcome. AskBaily charges a percentage at Practical Completion — we earn when you earn.

How to apply

Visit askbaily.com/for-pros/apply and submit Companies House / HMRC UTR (plus VAT number if applicable), Gas Safe registration (verified live at gassaferegister.co.uk), SELECT or NICEIC Scotland registration ID, SNIPEF or WaterSafe registration, FMB or CIOB membership if held, Certificate of Public Liability and Employers' Liability insurance, five prior Edinburgh references with homeowner contact permission, Edinburgh Council Completion Certificates for three portfolio projects under Warrant, Listed Building Consent decision notices for any heritage lane, and a Tenement Management Scheme notice sample if applying for the common-repair lane.

Verification runs 48–72 hours. On approval, you schedule a 30-minute intake call with AskBaily partner-ops to confirm area-cluster coverage, category specialism, crew size, and realistic start lead-time. First matched homeowner in ramping Edinburgh clusters typically arrives within 2–4 weeks. UK regulatory mapping (Scottish variant) is at askbaily.com/regulatory/uk-building-regs, and the take-rate vs lead-credit calculator is at askbaily.com/tools/lead-economics.

Why AskBaily vs keep-your-Checkatrade

We don't ask partners to drop Rated People, MyBuilder, or Checkatrade. Most approved Edinburgh partners run all channels in parallel for 90–180 days and measure completed-job CAC by channel on real production data. After six months, most shift budget toward AskBaily — not because the UK platforms don't work, but because on close-rate-adjusted CAC the maths favours percentage-at-completion over credit-at-enquiry when your close rate sits in the 10–18% band Edinburgh's shared-quote culture creates, and because the platforms have no structural way to route around Listed Building and Tenement Act complexity the way an Edinburgh-aware matching engine can. No exclusivity required on your end. Run the real comparison on your own Edinburgh figures across a full cycle — that's the only honest way to evaluate a new channel.