There Is No Roofing License Here. There Is a Statute Written About Roofers.

Not by looking for a license, because neither New York State nor Onondaga County issues one. You check the contract, because New York has a statute written about roofers specifically: General Business Law section 771-b requires the contract to name the insurer and the policy limits, makes it unlawful to advertise or promise to rebate any part of an insurance deductible, and bars a roofer from reporting, adjusting or negotiating a claim.

Start with what does not exist

Start at the state level, because it settles the question fastest. The New York State Department of State, Division of Consumer Protection, states plainly that New York State does not license home improvement contractors, although some counties and local municipalities do. The Attorney General names the places that do: New York City and Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties. All of them are downstate, and Onondaga County is not on the list. Locally the picture matches. The Onondaga County departments directory lists no Consumer Affairs department, no Weights and Measures department and no county code enforcement division, and the county's role in residential construction permitting is plumbing permits, with building permits, roofing included, issued by the city, town or village. So there is no state and no county roofing credential to hold, to display or to check, and a number offered on your porch as one is worth a pause rather than a nod. It makes no difference whether the crew is local, either. Section 770(8) of the General Business Law defines a roofing contractor as a person engaged in roofing, gutter, downspout or siding services, and expressly includes a nonresident roofing contractor, an independent contractor, a day laborer or a subcontractor, while exempting property owners performing work on their own property. An out of state crew that shows up the week after a windstorm carries every duty set out below.

New York wrote a section about roofers specifically

This is the part almost nobody in this market explains. Most trades here are covered only by the general home improvement article. Roofing has its own section stacked on top of it. General Business Law section 771-b is headed Responsibilities of roofing contractors, and subdivision 1 requires that every roofing contractor enter into a written contract with the owner, and that the contract contain the name of the insurer, the type of insurance coverage required by subdivision nine, and the insurance policy limits. Subdivision 9 then sets that floor: certificates of general liability and property damage insurance in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars per person and three hundred thousand dollars per occurrence for bodily injury, fifty thousand dollars for each occurrence and aggregate for property damage, and workers compensation coverage. Read the two subdivisions together and you have the practical replacement for a license number. The insurer name and the limits belong on the paper you sign, which means insured is a statement you can check against a figure instead of a word you have to take on trust. Ask for the certificate, then hold the limits up against the statute.

The two offers a New York roofer may not lawfully make

Both of them are the offers roofing companies advertise hardest after a storm, which is exactly why subdivision 2 of section 771-b exists. It states that a roofing contractor shall not advertise or promise to pay or rebate all or any portion of any insurance deductible as an inducement to the sale of goods or services, and the statute defines that inducement broadly enough to reach the things offered in its place: a discount, a gift, a coupon, a bonus, a rebate, a credit, a fee for sending another customer, or any other thing of value. So the familiar pitch that the deductible somehow will not fall on you is not a generous business decision and not a grey area. It is unlawful in this state, whatever form it is dressed in, and a company leading with it is telling you how it operates before you have asked. The second offer is the one that sounds like help. Subdivision 8 is a single sentence: a roofing contractor shall not perform the reporting, adjusting or negotiating of a claim. A roofer may climb up, inspect, photograph, scope the work, quote it and build it. Standing between you and your insurer is outside what a roofing contractor may lawfully do in New York, and a homeowner who genuinely wants that kind of representation needs a public adjuster, which is a separate regulated role. Neither prohibition costs you anything to enforce. You simply decline the offer, and you have learned something useful about the company that made it.

What happens if the insurer says the claim is not covered

You are not locked into a roof you never intended to fund yourself. Subdivision 3 of section 771-b provides that an owner who has entered into a written contract with a roofing contractor for goods or services to be paid under a property and casualty insurance policy may cancel the contract before midnight on the third business day after the insured party receives written notice from the insurer that all or any part of the claim or contract is not a covered loss. Read the clock carefully, because it runs from the insurer's letter rather than from your signature, so a denial that arrives weeks after you signed still opens the window. Subdivision 4 then requires the contractor to tender back any payments, partial payments or deposits made, within ten days of that cancellation, less the reasonable cost of any emergency services already provided. Ten days is a deadline, not a courtesy, and the emergency services carve-out is why an honest tarping charge belongs on its own line on the paperwork rather than buried in the contract price. Two practical points follow. Get the insurer's decision in writing and keep the envelope or the email, because that document starts the clock. And do not let a crew start the tear-off while the claim is still undecided, because a roof that is already open changes the conversation entirely.

The contract, and the three business day window

Section 770 defines home improvement to include repairing, remodeling, altering or adding to residential property and names roofing among the covered work, and a contract falls under Article 36-A where the aggregate price specified in one or more home improvement contracts exceeds five hundred dollars. Every roof replacement in this county clears that, so the protections apply by default and you do not have to negotiate for them. Section 771 then requires the contract to be evidenced by a writing signed by all the parties, stating the approximate or estimated dates when work will begin and be substantially completed, including any contingencies, along with the contractor's name, address and telephone number and a description of the work and the materials to be used. A price on a business card is not a lawful home improvement contract in New York. And if you have already signed under pressure at the kitchen table, section 771 lets you cancel until midnight of the third business day after the day you signed, by written notice delivered to the contractor. Send it in writing and keep proof of what you sent and when.

Deposits, abandonment and unpaid suppliers

Your deposit is trust money rather than the company's working capital. Section 771 requires the contract to carry a notice that the contractor is legally required to deposit all payments received before completion in accordance with the lien law, or in the alternative to post a bond, a contract of indemnity or an irrevocable letter of credit covering the proper application of those funds. Ask which of those routes the company uses, and get the answer in the contract rather than in conversation, because that notice is the difference between a deposit that is protected and a deposit that has already been spent on somebody else's roof. Two more duties sit alongside it. Subdivision 6 of section 771-b states that a roofing contractor shall not abandon or fail to perform, without justification, any roofing contract, and subdivision 7 states that a roofing contractor shall not fail to pay for materials or services rendered. So a half stripped roof left open to the weather is a statutory violation and not merely a scheduling problem, and a supplier lien arriving at your address because the shingles were never paid for is the same. Both are worth knowing about before you pay anything up front, because they tell you what the law expects the money to be doing.

The checklist, and why the cheapest bid is often cheap for a reason

Six things, none of which asks you to trust anybody. One, get the contract in writing with start and substantial completion dates in it. Two, check that it names the insurer, the coverage type and the policy limits, then ask for the certificate and compare it to the statutory minimums. Three, check that the deposit language points at the lien law or a bond; the Attorney General puts it in plainer terms, that contractors are required to deposit progress payments in an escrow account to be used solely for the customer's project unless they instead obtain bond insurance to protect the money, so ask which of the two routes this company uses. Four, tie the money to the work. The Department of State advises homeowners to insist on a written contract with a description of the work, a timeline, the price and a payment schedule, and never to pay the full price up front, but instead to tie payments to completion of specific stages. On a roof the natural stages are materials delivered, tear-off and deck inspection complete, and final clean-up and inspection. Five, decline any offer involving your deductible, and keep the claim conversation between you and your insurer. Six, ask who is pulling the permit and confirm the answer with the office that actually covers your address, which in this county changes from village to village. One more thing to weigh when a bid comes in far under the others: OSHA standard 29 CFR 1926.501 requires fall protection for employees engaged in roofing activities on low slope and steep roofs and in residential construction wherever there are unprotected sides and edges six feet or more above lower levels. Practically every two story roof in Syracuse clears six feet, so anchors, harnesses or guardrails sit inside the cost of a lawful bid. A price that undercuts everyone else has usually left something out, and this is one of the things it leaves out.