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We started this because we could not find a plumber
Semigrate SA exists to give relocating families the thing they lose when they move: a network of people they can ask.
When we moved our own family down from Gauteng, the hard part was not the drive. It was the fortnight afterwards.
The removal company had been chosen from three quotes and a website. The school had said yes over email and then asked for documents nobody had mentioned. And when the geyser went on the fourth night, we did what everybody does: we posted in a local Facebook group at eleven at night and took the first name that came back with more than two likes.
He was fine, as it turned out. But it was luck, and we had just made four or five decisions the same way — each one worth real money, each one made on almost no information. Everyone we met who had made the same move told a version of the same story.
What we do differently
A directory is only worth anything if somebody checks what is in it. So that is the whole job. We are calling every business we list and we are working through the current list. We ask for the documents their category requires, and we tie reviews to completed work rather than collecting them anonymously. We also follow up on negative reviews — if a business turns out to be unreliable, it comes off.
Businesses can pay to be more visible, and we say so plainly with a gold badge wherever it happens. What they cannot do is pay to be verified, pay for a better rating, or pay to have a bad review removed. If that ever stops being true, the site stops being worth using.
We would rather list twenty businesses we can stand behind than two hundred we cannot.
Where we are going
We started with Hermanus, George and Cape Town because that is where the people we knew were landing. Towns get added when we have enough businesses in them to be genuinely useful — not before. Stellenbosch, Paarl, Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay are next.
How we verify
Four steps, every listing. We are working through the current list.
1. We talk to a human
An actual phone call, not a form. Until we have had that conversation, the business stays on our list to contact.
2. We check the paperwork
Fidelity Fund Certificates for estate agents, goods-in-transit cover for movers, Certificates of Compliance for electricians, registration for schools.
3. We confirm the service area
Plenty of businesses claim to cover a town they visit twice a year. We check where they actually work.
4. We keep checking
Verification is reviewed annually, and immediately if we receive a credible complaint.
This directory is only as good as the people using it
We build these listings from public sources and from what people tell us. We check what we can, but there are only so many of us, and businesses move, numbers change and schools update their fees.
So if you spot something wrong, tell us. There is a link on every listing, it takes about ten seconds and you do not need an account.
If you run one of these businesses, claim your listing and you can keep it right yourself.
We would rather hear the same correction three times than not hear it at all.
Have a question we have not answered?
We would genuinely rather hear from you than have you guess.