Your legal obligation
What self-employed antique dealers need to have in place
As a self-employed antique or vintage dealer, a risk assessment covering manual handling, vehicle loading, and public safety at fairs, a health and safety policy, fire safety documentation for any storage premises or shop, and COSHH documentation for any restoration products used are all required. Antique fair organisers and market operators increasingly ask dealers for evidence of public liability insurance and compliance documentation. Having everything in place strengthens your applications for pitch space. CompliantDocs produces everything in minutes.
The real problem
Self-employed antique dealers often have insurance but no formal compliance documentation
Public liability insurance is widely held among antique dealers, but the risk assessment and other compliance documentation that supports it is often not formally in place. CompliantDocs produces everything in minutes from your answers.
Half a working day
What self-employed antique dealers spend on compliance. Our service does it in minutes.
Your trade, specifically
The risks and requirements specific to your work
Self-employed antique dealers face a complex mix of chemical and physical hazards across restoration, cleaning, and display activities. You handle wood strippers containing dichloromethane or acetone daily when refinishing furniture, creating vapour inhalation risks without proper ventilation controls. Polish removers, tung oil finishes, and linseed oil treatments pose skin contact dermatitis hazards, particularly when handling textiles and upholstered pieces. Lead paint dust emerges as a critical concern when working on pre-1980s furniture, requiring specific assessment and control measures under COSHH regulations. Your workshop environment involves power tools including angle grinders, orbital sanders, and hand-held drills that create noise, dust, and laceration risks. Manual handling of heavy Victorian dressers, oak chests, and cast iron decorative items regularly exceeds safe lifting limits, especially when working alone. Storage areas accumulate flammable substances including white spirit, furniture polish, and varnish in inappropriate containers. You assess client consultation visits to view collections in domestic settings, introducing lone working hazards and unfamiliar environmental risks. Electrical equipment in your workspace—extension leads, PAT-testing requirements for restoration tools, and lighting in storage areas—requires documented safety checks. Fire safety presents genuine risk given chemical storage volumes and electrical equipment density in typically confined workshop spaces.
The cost of getting it wrong
What happens without proper documentation
Operating without documented health and safety compliance exposes you to serious legal and financial consequences. The HSE has authority to issue Improvement Notices requiring specific corrective action within defined timescales, or Prohibition Notices that can halt your antique dealing operations entirely if hazards pose imminent risk. Prosecution for breaching Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 carries unlimited fines, with individual self-employed persons liable for personal prosecution—not just business fines. Insurance companies routinely reject claims from uninsured or non-compliant operators; if a client is injured during a workshop visit or you suffer chemical exposure damage, your insurance will deny coverage, leaving you personally liable for medical costs and compensation claims. Lead paint dust exposure claims carry particularly serious liability. Without documented risk assessment and control measures, you cannot demonstrate duty of care to the HSE or to injured parties. A single accident involving lead exposure or manual handling injury can trigger HSE investigation, fines exceeding 10,000 GBP, and reputational damage that destroys your antique dealing business. CompliantDocs eliminates this exposure with eight done-for-you documents tailored to your specific operations, delivered in minutes at a fraction of consultant fees.