Roofer pre-hire check
Verify a roofer before you hire.
A re-roof tear-off & replace, a standing-seam metal install, a flat / TPO / membrane scope on a low-slope porch, a storm-restoration GC pulling shingle and metal and flat subs across a hail zip code — every one of them puts a five-figure payment in front of a roofer you do not yet have a relationship with, and concentrates supplier-lien and wide-permit-trigger and wind-driven-rain water-intrusion exposure in a way a deck rebuild or a kitchen remodel handle differently. Run the same public-record check the roofer runs on you, pair it with the four parallel signals the public record does not cover, and decide with the full picture before you write the deposit.
Or review plans for Solo / Team contractors.
What the public-record check covers on a roofer
The same four public-record sources TradeSafeJobs uses for pre-bid client vetting — reframed for the lens of a homeowner running the check on a roofer instead of the other way around. Roofer hires concentrate the supplier-lien signal — shingle manufacturer, underlayment, ice-and-water shield, metal coil, gutter apron, flashing distributor — more than any other residential trade, and the wide roof-replacement-and-overlay permit set widens the permit-trigger exposure beyond what a finish-carpentry or floor-covering scope would drive. The storm-restoration GC subset concentrates the sub-crew / multi-crew payment-friction pattern further.
Civil cases filed in U.S. District Courts naming the roofer or the roofer’s entity. Adversary proceedings, debt-collection actions, and federal-question disputes surface here before they appear on a state-court index.
Why it matters on a roofer hire: A federal civil filing is the earliest indicator that the roofer you are about to retain is already in active litigation. It is independent of the lien history on your specific property and tends to predate the payment-risk signals you would see at the state level.
Money judgments recorded at the state trial-court level — open, satisfied, and vacated judgments against the roofer or the roofer entity. Same dataset a homeowner does not normally see when they ask a roofer for "references."
Why it matters on a roofer hire: An open money judgment names a prior trade the roofer already owes — shingle manufacturer, underlayment supplier, ice-and-water shield vendor, metal coil supplier, gutter apron fabricator, flashing distributor. That is exactly the cohort you are about to join if the reroof or storm-restoration scope goes sideways, and a prior judgment concentration is the single sharpest go / caution / no-go signal the public record carries.
Recorded mechanic's liens on residential roofing projects the roofer has worked on. Roofing hires concentrate the supplier-lien risk — shingle manufacturer, underlayment, ice-and-water shield, metal coil, gutter apron, flashing distributor — and an unpaid supplier can file a mechanic's lien against the homeowner's property, not the roofer's. We surface liens the roofer has filed as an unpaid claimant (a recovery pattern) AND liens a prior homeowner has filed AGAINST the roofer's work (a payment friction pattern). The storm-restoration GC cohort concentrates the pattern further: one operator plus sub crews across shingle / metal / flat.
Why it matters on a roofer hire: A pattern of prior supplier liens against the roofer’s work is a Caution-grade signal — the unpaid supplier can attach YOUR title, not the roofer’s, until the debt resolves. A roofer who has filed many mechanic’s liens of their own is signaling they have had to chase payment on prior reroofs and storm restorations — read in context.
Chapter 7, 11, and 13 petitions filed by or against the roofer in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Active cases, discharges, and dismissals all appear with the current status flagged next to the filing.
Why it matters on a roofer hire: A pending bankruptcy automatically stays most collection activity, including judgment enforcement. A prior discharge also matters — debts wiped out there will not reappear as fresh judgments later, so an older discharge that has been resolved can be read as neutral context rather than a live signal. Storm-restoration GC bankruptcies carry an extra wrinkle — the operator frequently disappears before the first insurance supplement resolves.
What to verify in parallel — and why
Five checks every roofer hire should clear. Two are partially covered by TradeSafeJobs; three are external and must be verified independently. Treat the public-record Go as necessary but not sufficient — these five are the rest, and the roofer-specific exposure on supplier liens, wind-driven-rain / flashing water intrusion, and the wide roof-replacement permit trigger set is what makes each of them different from the same check on a deck build or a kitchen remodel.
State contractor’s license lookup
Pull the roofer’s license status on your state contractor board site — verify the license is current, bonded, and unrestricted. Confirm the license class actually covers the scope of your project (re-roof tear-off & replace vs. asphalt shingle overlay vs. standing-seam metal vs. flat / TPO / membrane vs. storm-restoration). Some states issue a separate roofing classifier.
Why: An active license is the single signal TradeSafeJobs does not check. It is the most concrete thing you can do before writing the deposit, and at least one state places the lookup result alongside every public-record entry on the report.
Certificate of insurance — general liability + workers’ comp
Ask the roofer for a COI naming YOU as the certificate holder for the duration of the project. Verify both general liability — must explicitly cover wind-driven-rain / flashing-failure water intrusion during the install (a separate carve-out from the kitchen water-damage exclusion) AND confirm siding and gutter tie-in coverage — and workers’ comp, verified by a phone call to the issuing carrier, not just the producer’s certificate PDF. Roofing has the highest workers’ comp claim rate of any residential trade.
Why: A roofing-without-flashing failure shows up at the first wind-driven rain and drives water behind siding and into the wall cavity — turning a $20k reroof into a five-figure insurance claim against the homeowner’s policy if the roofer’s general liability excludes water intrusion during construction. A fall from the roof at the homeowner’s property puts the homeowner’s-policy at risk if workers’ comp is not in force. Storm-restoration GCs handling active hail zip codes concentrate injury exposure further.
Surety bond check at the state board
If your state requires residential contractor bonds, confirm the bond is in force for the roofer’s current license. A bond that has lapsed usually means the license is one renewal payment away from being suspended.
Why: A lapsed bond is one of the few signals that can flip a license from "active" to "suspended" without warning. Most state boards surface bond status next to license status when both are pulled in the same lookup.
Local permit history at the building department
Pull the roofer’s permit history at your local building department — past reroofs and storm restorations pulled under their license, code-case history, and final inspection outcomes. Roofing permit triggers are wide and quasi-mandatory — most jurisdictions require a roof replacement permit, some require one even for overlay, and ice-and-water shield / flashing tie-ins to existing siding are usually pulled in the same scope. Unpermitted reroofs transfer to the new owner at sale.
Why: A pattern of permits pulled but never finalized, or storm-restoration scopes filed at the post-event rush where final inspections trail by months, is the signal a public-record check does not surface. Unpermitted roof replacement is a hidden liability that surfaces at sale. The building department record is local-only and lives outside the datasets we pull.
Financial-health indicator summary
The aggregate read on the roofer’s payment profile — how often they show up as an unpaid claimant on prior projects, how often they appear as a defendant in payment disputes, and the current status of the largest open judgments. On a roofer hire this read also reflects how the operator handles a hired shingle sub, a metal sub, or a flat / TPO sub on larger scopes, or how a storm-restoration GC manages the sub crew pattern across shingle / metal / flat.
Why: TradeSafeJobs condenses the four federal/state sources into a Go / Caution / No-Go verdict and surfaces the counts that drove the verdict — the same read a contractor uses on a homeowner before bidding, repackaged for the homeowner running it on the contractor. The storm-restoration GC variant concentrates this further: one operator plus sub crews across shingle / metal / flat surfaces as the same subcontractor-churn signal a kitchen GC carries, only at higher volume and faster zip-code churn.
Common roofer pre-hire questions
Short answers to the questions homeowners ask before they run the public-record check on a roofer — what to expect, what the verdict means, and how to pair it with the parallel checks above.
What is the single most important check before I hire a roofer?
Verify the state contractor’s license directly on the state board site — confirm the license class covers your scope (re-roof tear-off & replace, asphalt shingle overlay, standing-seam metal, flat / TPO / membrane, or storm-restoration), confirm it is current, and confirm the bond is in force. Then pair it with a phone call to the COI carrier to verify the certificate explicitly covers wind-driven-rain / flashing-failure water intrusion during the install, AND confirm workers’ comp is in force — roofing has the highest workers’ comp claim rate of any residential trade and a fall from the roof puts the homeowner’s-policy at risk if the COI excludes it.
How is a Go / Caution / No-Go on a roofer different from the one I see on a homeowner?
The four public-record sources are the same, but the read is different. On a homeowner, "Caution" usually means they have open judgments a prior creditor already won. On a roofer, "Caution" usually means prior trades — shingle manufacturer, underlayment supplier, ice-and-water shield vendor, metal coil supplier, gutter apron fabricator, flashing distributor — already had to chase payment from them, the same cohort you are about to join. A storm-restoration GC who runs one operator plus sub crews across shingle / metal / flat is also a multi-entity / multi-crew pattern with the same subcontractor-churn signal a kitchen GC carries — read accordingly. The verdict vocabulary is identical; the underlying signal flips.
Does a clean Go mean the roofer is safe to hire?
A clean Go is "no red flags in the public record today" — not a guarantee. The four sources do not include a state license, certificate of insurance, surety-bond status, or local permit history. Run those four checks in parallel before you sign; the public-record Go pairs with them, it does not replace them. Roofing permits are widely required for reroof and storm restoration — a "clean Go" with unpermitted roof replacement is a Caution-grade hidden liability that surfaces at sale, and storm-restoration scopes filed at the post-event rush frequently trail final inspections by months.
Should the roofer know I am running a public-record check?
Yes — and that is the framing the bid walk should start from. A licensed, bonded roofer with a clean public record will not object; the Go verdict on a roofer is exactly the symmetrical counterpart to the Go verdict a contractor sees on a clean homeowner. Run it the same way the contractor runs it on you.
Pre-hire next step
Run the roofer check before you sign the contract.
Pull the public-record Go / Caution / No-Go on the roofer you are about to retain, then walk down the five parallel checks above — license, COI explicitly covering wind-driven-rain / flashing-failure water intrusion and workers’ comp, surety bond, local permit history that covers the wide roof-replacement permit trigger, and the financial-health read on the roofer plus their shingle / metal / flat subs. The verdict is the first signal, not the last one.