Responsible representative

What it means

A responsible representative is the person who satisfies the professional competence required for a craft trade licence or a regulated trade licence on the entrepreneur’s behalf. One is appointed when neither the entrepreneur nor the statutory body meets the conditions.

This is not a representative in the legal sense: the person does not act for the company externally, sign contracts or hold a procuration. The name is also confused with the GDPR data protection officer, which is unrelated; the role answers only for the professional conduct of the trade.

The role is tied to a specific trade licence and a specific person. A company holding several craft or regulated trades may need several representatives, each qualified in their own field. When a representative leaves, their competence leaves with them, and the company’s right to carry on that activity depends on how soon a replacement is found.

How it works in practice

The appointment is notified to the trade licensing office and entered in the trade register, so anyone can verify it. The person must hold the education and practice required for the field and stand in the relationship with the entrepreneur that the Act prescribes, normally employment.

The Act limits the number of premises at which one person may hold the role: as a rule a single establishment, with exceptions granted by the trade licensing office. If the role ends, the entrepreneur has fifteen days to appoint a successor and may keep trading in the meantime only where that puts nobody’s life, health or safety at risk.

We run the responsible representative through payroll like any other employee, often on reduced hours. When preparing the paperwork we make sure the employment contract describes real supervision of the work and that the hours match the scale of the business. A contract for a few hours a month at a construction firm with dozens of jobs will not survive an inspection.

What to watch out for

A company pays a responsible representative a token fee for lending a certificate and never sees them again. An inspection then shows that nobody supervised the work: the office suspends the licence, jobs in progress have to be handed over, and contractual penalties for unfinished work dwarf the salary that was saved.

In public procurement the contracting authority checks the bidder’s authorisation in the trade register. If it lists a representative who no longer works for the company, or none at all, the bid may be excluded for failing the conditions of participation, even though the company could do the work and offered the lowest price.