Editorial policy

Our guides and knowledge base, the pages for each profession, the free tools, the sanctions list changes page, and the wording of the results and certificates our checks produce.

Primary sources first, and each guide names the one it relies on:

• the law itself (legislation.gov.uk);
• the regulator or supervisor’s own guidance, such as HMRC for estate and letting agents and OFSI for sanctions;
• the official registers and lists our checks use: the UK Sanctions List (FCDO), the UN, EU and US OFAC sanctions lists, Companies House, the FCA Register, the EPC register and Environment Agency flood data.

Trade press and other firms’ pages are used only for context, and named as such. Comparison pages describe other providers from their own public pages, and say where they are stronger.

• Each guide is checked against its source before it is published and again when the rules change, and shows the date it was last checked.
• Every price on the site comes from one price list, so a page cannot show a different price from the one you pay.
• A result never says a check ran unless it did. If a source is unavailable, the result says “not screened” and that part is not charged.
• Live data pages show when they were last updated, and say so if an update is late.
• After any large change to the site, we review the claims made across every page.

We report what public registers and official lists say. We don’t give legal advice, and your firm makes its own compliance decisions. Where a guide explains a legal duty, it links the source so you can read the requirement in full.

If something on our site is wrong or out of date, email hello@certaby.com with the page and what you think is wrong. We check it against the source, fix it, and update the date shown on the page.