Questions to Ask Before You Sign a Roofing Contract

Payment and deposit

Ask what the deposit is, then hold the number up against your own state's law before you initial anything. New York settles it fast: a roofer there may not require money up front for the work or the materials, so a deposit line in a New York roofing contract is itself the problem. California allows a small one. Under its home improvement statute, Business and Professions Code 7159.5, the deposit may not pass a tenth of the contract price, and may not pass $1,000, with the smaller of the two controlling. A $25,000 roof therefore stops at $1,000, unless the roofer carries an approved bond, and the contract should name that bond if he does. Several other states, Maryland and Massachusetts among them, are reported to set their limit nearer a third. Most states have no rule on this whatsoever.

Whatever your state allows, the rest of the schedule matters as much as the deposit. Every payment after the first should hang on a stage of work you can go outside and verify, and the final one should wait until the job passes inspection. A contract that wants half the money before the truck shows up is the oldest way there is to lose it.

Scope and change orders

Make sure the full scope is written into the contract, not just discussed. Ask how change orders work, especially what a sheet of decking runs if the crew uncovers rot after the tear-off, so the price is set before the surprise instead of after.

Warranties: name both, and read the one he owes you

Two warranties, from two companies, and your roofer can only be held to one of them. The shingle warranty belongs to the manufacturer. It will read Limited Lifetime rather than a number of years, and what that phrase really buys you gets picked apart on our roofing quote checklist. Read that page before you sign this contract, because the shingle warranty is the promise homeowners misprice most.

The warranty that belongs in this contract is the other one: the roofer's own workmanship coverage, which speaks to how the roof went on rather than to what it was made of. Nobody governs it, no body sets a minimum, and its length is exactly whatever he agrees to type. So get the length, and then get the part that matters more and that nobody asks for: the exclusions. Does he eat the labor when he has to pull shingles for a manufacturer defect. Does the coverage survive if you sell the house. Is it a clause in this contract or a sentence a man said in your driveway. Five years in writing beats a lifetime that was never printed.

Permits, dates, and delays

Confirm the contractor pulls the permit under their own license. Get a start date, a completion window, and what happens if weather or the contractor causes a long delay. A contract with no dates gives you no recourse if the job stalls for months.

Liens: the waiver only covers the man who signs it

This is the one almost everybody has backwards, and getting it wrong can cost you a roof twice. A lien waiver releases the lien rights of the party who signed it. Nobody else. So the waiver your roofer hands over at final payment clears your roofer, and does precisely nothing about the crew he subbed the tear-off to, or the yard that dropped the bundles in your driveway. California's civil code says as much: no contract can sign away some other claimant's lien rights, and those rights survive until that claimant signs his own release. California gives you no paid in full defense either. An unpaid sub can record a lien against a home whose owner already paid the contractor every dollar of the price.

So ask for the list before you sign: every sub and every supplier who will touch the job. Then get a signed release from each of them, not just from the man you wrote the check to. Ask which form your state requires too, because California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Florida all prescribe the exact wording, and a waiver written any other way is void. Florida gives you a second tool as well, a final payment affidavit the contractor signs listing everyone still owed.

Cancellation: count business days, not days

If a roofer sold you the job in your home, federal law gives you a way out. The Cooling Off Rule lets you cancel any time before midnight of the third business day after you sign. Business days, not calendar days, and that difference is the whole ballgame: sign on a Friday and your deadline is Wednesday, not Monday. A storm door knock is inside this rule essentially every time, and the seller has to hand you the notice and the cancellation forms. Some roofers will tell you a repair job is exempt. It is not. That carve out is for repairs to your personal property, and your roof is part of the real estate.