Roofing contract rules, state by state
How long you can back out of a roofing contract, how much a roofer may ask up front, when a roofer can put a lien on your house and what a roofer may do about your insurance claim. We read the statute or rule itself, and a cell says not confirmed when we could not.
Short answer: 27 states have a page, and every rule on it is quoted from an official statute, agency rule or regulator page with a link and a check date. For a sale made at your home, federal law gives you 3 business days to cancel in every state. 25 of 27 states have a cancel period of their own for sales made away from the seller's shop, from 72 hours to 3 business days. 14 of 27 states have a rule on deposits or down payments. The deadline to file a lien on a home is 60 days to 6 months in the 25 states where we confirmed a number.
Map: where the rules differ
Hover or focus a state to read its numbers. Click to open its page.
Darker means a shorter period (or, on the last tab, fewer rules). Colours split the states that have a number into five groups of about equal size. Hatched means we did not confirm a state rule of that kind; the federal 3-day rule still applies to a sale made at your home. Business days are scaled by 7/5 for colour only.
The rule in every state: 3 business days to cancel
Under the federal Cooling-Off Rule, a contractor who sells you a roof at your home must tell you about the right to cancel and give you a form for it. These rules apply in every state; each is quoted from the regulation.
| Federal rule | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cancel a sale made at your home within 3 business days The federal rule covers a door-to-door sale of consumer services: the seller solicits you and you agree somewhere other than the seller's place of business, such as your home. A state can give you more time; it cannot give you less. Quote“You, the buyer, may cancel this transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.” |
3 business days | 16 CFR §429.1(a) |
| What counts as a business day for the 3-day right So a Saturday counts and a Sunday or a federal holiday does not. Quote“Business Day —Any calendar day except Sunday or any federal holiday” |
16 CFR §429.0(f) | |
| Sales covered by the 3-day right: price floor $25 applies when the sale is made at your residence, $130 at other places away from the seller's business. A roof replacement is far above both. Quote“which has a purchase price of $25 or more if the sale is made at the buyer's residence or a purchase price of $130 or more if the sale is made at locations other than the buyer's residence” |
$25 | 16 CFR §429.0(a) |
| The seller must tell you about the right out loud It is an unfair and deceptive practice not to tell you orally when you sign, and not to give you two copies of a notice of cancellation (§429.1(b)). Quote“Fail to inform each buyer orally, at the time the buyer signs the contract or purchases the goods or services, of the buyer's right to cancel.” |
16 CFR §429.1(e) | |
| Two copies of the cancellation form at signing The form must say 'NOTICE OF RIGHT TO CANCEL' or 'NOTICE OF CANCELLATION' and be in the language used in the sales talk. Quote“Fail to furnish each buyer, at the time the buyer signs the door-to-door sales contract or otherwise agrees to buy consumer goods or services from the seller, a completed form in duplicate, captioned either” |
16 CFR §429.1(b) | |
| The seller must refund your money after you cancel Counted from the day the seller receives your notice of cancellation, not from the contract. Quote“within 10 business days after the receipt of such notice, to: (i) Refund all payments made under the contract or sale” |
10 business days | 16 CFR §429.1(g) |
A contract cannot take the right awayQuote“Include in any door-to-door contract or receipt any confession of judgment or any waiver of any of the rights to which the buyer is entitled under this section including specifically the buyer's right to cancel the sale” |
16 CFR §429.1(d) | |
| The one exception that matters for roofers: a handwritten emergency waiver You called the roofer, the job is a real emergency and you wrote and signed the statement yourself. If you did not write it by hand, the 3 days still run. Quote“In which the buyer has initiated the contact and the goods or services are needed to meet a bona fide immediate personal emergency of the buyer, and the buyer furnishes the seller with a separate dated and signed personal statement in the buyer's handwriting describing the situation requiring immediate remedy and expressly acknowledging and waiving the right to cancel the sale within 3 business days” |
16 CFR §429.0(a)(3) | |
The seller cannot sell your debt for 5 business daysQuote“prior to midnight of the fifth business day following the day the contract was signed or the goods or services were purchased” |
5 business days | 16 CFR §429.1(h) |
| State laws that give you the same or more still apply That is why this site lists the state rules next to the federal one. Quote“This part will not be construed to annul, or exempt any seller from complying with, the laws of any State or the ordinances of a political subdivision thereof that regulate door-to-door sales” |
16 CFR §429.2(b) |
Find your last day to cancel
Enter the signing date and the calculator counts each cancel period the way its rule defines the days. Add the insurer’s denial date, the last day of work or the finish date to date the other rules.
Only the signing date is needed for the cancel dates. Add the other dates when they happen and the rules that start from them get a calendar day too. Counting starts the day after the date you enter.
Enter the signing date to see your dates.
Days are counted the way each rule defines them: federal “business days” skip Sundays and federal holidays and count Saturdays; where a state rule defines business days as Monday to Friday we skip Saturdays and Sundays; where a rule says business days without defining them, or just says “days”, we count every calendar day and show the earliest possible date. State holidays are not subtracted, so a real deadline can fall a day or two later than shown. If the last day lands on a weekend, do not wait for it. General information from public rules, not legal advice.
All states side by side
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Alabama | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 5 business days | Rule quoted | 6 months | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Colorado | Rule quoted | 72 hours | 72 hours | Rule quoted | 4 months | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Florida | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | 10% | 90 days | 6 | 1 | 4 |
| Georgia | Rule quoted | not confirmed | 5 business days | 33% | not confirmed | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Idaho | Rule quoted | not confirmed | not confirmed | not confirmed | 90 days | — | 1 | 10 |
| Illinois | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 5 business days | not confirmed | 4 months | 1 | — | 9 |
| Indiana | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 3 business days | not confirmed | 90 days | 3 | — | 6 |
| Iowa | not confirmed | 3 business days | not confirmed | not confirmed | not confirmed | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| Kansas | not confirmed | 3 business days | not confirmed | not confirmed | 4 months | 2 | — | 7 |
| Kentucky | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 5 business days | 10 days | 6 months | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Louisiana | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | 45 days | 60 days | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Michigan | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | Rule quoted | 90 days | — | — | 9 |
| Minnesota | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 72 hours | not confirmed | 120 days | 4 | — | 5 |
| Missouri | not confirmed | 3 business days | 5 business days | not confirmed | 6 months | 3 | — | 6 |
| Nebraska | not confirmed | 3 business days | not confirmed | not confirmed | 120 days | — | — | 9 |
| Nevada | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | Rule quoted | 90 days | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| New Mexico | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | not confirmed | 120 days | 2 | — | 8 |
| North Carolina | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 5 business days | not confirmed | 120 days | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Ohio | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | 10% of the price | 60 days | 1 | — | 8 |
| Oklahoma | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 72 hours | Rule quoted | 4 months | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Oregon | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | not confirmed | 75 days | — | 2 | 9 |
| South Carolina | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 5 business days | 5 business days | 90 days | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| South Dakota | Rule quoted | 3 business days | 72 hours | not confirmed | 120 days | 1 | — | 7 |
| Texas | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | Rule quoted | 3 months | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| Virginia | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | Rule quoted | 90 days | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| Washington | Rule quoted | 3 days | not confirmed | not confirmed | 90 days | 2 | — | 11 |
| Wisconsin | Rule quoted | 3 business days | not confirmed | Rule quoted | 6 months | — | 1 | 8 |
A number is shown only where a statute or rule states it, with the section on the state page. “State cancel period” is a period that the state adds for roofing or home-improvement contracts; the federal 3 business days apply on top. Insurance claim rules and disaster rules are counts of rules we quoted, not a score.
State cancel periods, shortest to longest
Days as the rule counts them (business days scaled by 7/5 for the position of the dot only).
Days allowed to file a lien
A lien deadline is the contractor’s clock, but it tells you how long after the last day of work a claim on your house can still be filed.
Go deeper
- Insurance claim deadlines by state: what the insurer must do and when.
- Insurer roof-age rules and hail history by county.
How we checked
407 rules on these 27 state pages and the federal rule each carry a short quote from the source text, a link and the date we read it, 222 different source pages in all. We count only statutes, agency rules and regulator pages on an official site; law-firm pages, blogs and mirrors such as Cornell LII or Justia pointed us to the right section but are never a source. 166 were read from a dated archive copy of the official page because the live site refused our request; the state page marks each one. 175 items stay marked not confirmed on the state pages because the official text was unreachable or did not state the point.