Prontco Verified  /  For stratas, property managers & landlords

The clearance letter you were sent is probably addressed to the wrong person.

Under the Workers Compensation Act, the person a contractor does work for shares liability for that contractor's unpaid WorkSafeBC assessment. A clearance letter protects you only if it is addressed to you and covers the whole job. Most aren't, and most don't.

A fact against our own interest: on 19 September we re-checked every contractor on our own list against WorkSafeBC. Three were delinquent. We found out because we checked, and we benched them. That is the whole argument for checking.

Three things that are true, and the source for each

No mandates that don't exist, no fines that haven't happened. These three are in the Act and on WorkSafeBC's own pages.

WCA s.258

You share the contractor's assessment.

Both the contractor and the person the work is undertaken for are liable for the assessment. It cannot be contracted away — a clause requiring the contractor to carry coverage is not enough.

Workers Compensation Act, Part 5
Addressee & period

The letter must be addressed to you.

To be relieved of that liability you hold a clearance letter addressed to you, covering the entire contract period — one before work starts and one before final payment. A letter addressed to the contractor, or one that lapsed mid-job, does nothing for you.

WorkSafeBC: Why you need a clearance letter
WCA s.13

With nothing signed, you are the prime contractor.

Where there is no written agreement, the prime contractor is the owner of the workplace — and "owner" includes an occupier or an agent acting for them. Two trades on common property with nothing in writing puts the strata in that seat.

Workers Compensation Act, Part 2

The three checks, for any contractor, today

You can do these yourself in about ten minutes per contractor. We do them for every contractor we dispatch, and the file reaches you before they do.

01
Pull the clearance letter yourself, addressed to your strata or company.

WorkSafeBC's clearance tool lets you request a letter in your own name with the contractor's account number. Don't accept the one the contractor forwards — it is addressed to them, and it only tells you they were paid up on the day it was generated.

02
Pull it twice: before work starts, and before final payment.

A clearance is valid only to the contractor's last payment date. A quarterly filer who goes unpaid on the 20th shows as delinquent the next day, mid-job. The second pull is the one that protects the final invoice.

03
Put it in writing who the prime contractor is.

One line in the work order or contract naming the contractor as prime contractor for the job. Without it, s.13 makes the owner — or the manager acting for them — prime by default.

What a Prontco Verified file documents

Every contractor we dispatch is checked against the registry that issued each document, with the date we checked it. You get the file before they attend.

  • ✓BC Registries — the business exists and is active, under the name on the invoice.
  • ✓Business licence in the city the building is in, not just where the contractor lives.
  • ✓WorkSafeBC clearance — pulled by us, re-pulled before final payment.
  • ✓$2M commercial general liability, with you named as additional insured on request.
  • ✓GST registration, so the invoice you pay is one CRA recognises.
  • ✓Identity confirmed on a call, with the person who signs the agreement.

A vetting file is also the record that you exercised reasonable care in choosing the contractor — the thing an occupier is asked to show when a contractor's work goes wrong. We are not lawyers; if that matters to a specific building, ask yours.

Already have contractors you trust?

Good — keep them. We're the overflow: the trade nobody on your list does, the city nobody covers, the week everyone is booked. One request, one invoice, the compliance file first.

Where the list is thin for a trade or a city, we say so before you book, and we recruit to it.

See a price and book →How Verified works

The two-page brief, for your council or your file.

The three facts with their sources, the three checks as a checklist, and the one sentence to put in every work order. Written to be forwarded to a council or a managing broker as-is.

WorkSafeBC clearance letters: the strata & property manager briefPDF · 2 pages · sources cited on every claim · free

Sending this asks us to reply about it, by email or a call. We don’t sell or share your details, and one reply saying stop ends it. Privacy

That didn’t send. Email info@prontco.ca instead.

The brief opens on this page and is emailed to you. We'll call once, within a business day, to ask what you'd actually refuse a contractor over. Emails only if you tick the box above — never a mailing list. Terms.

Prontco · Richmond, BC · prontco.ca · info@prontco.ca · Terms
This page describes provisions of the Workers Compensation Act as published by WorkSafeBC. It is general information, not legal advice.