Roofing contracts, signed at the kitchen table

What a roofing job asks you to get signed

• Inspection authorizationPermission to get on the roof, take photos and meet the adjuster. Short, and best signed before the ladder comes off the truck.
• Roofing contractScope, materials, price, start window and payment terms. If insurance is paying, put in writing what happens when the approved amount comes in lower.
• Change ordersRotted decking, a second layer to tear off, a supplement the insurer approved. Get the new price signed before the work. See how to write a change order.
• Assignment of benefitsHands the homeowner's claim rights to you. Use with care: Florida voids them for residential policies issued on or after January 1, 2023, and rules differ by state.
• Certificate of completionThe homeowner's sign-off at the final walk-through, confirming the work is done. Send it with your final invoice.
• Warranty and lien waiversYour workmanship warranty, plus the lien waiver a homeowner may ask for when they pay you.

Rules to know before you sign at the table

When you sell at the homeowner's house, the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule covers sales of $25 or more; smaller sales at the home are excluded. The buyer can cancel until midnight of the third business day after the sale, and you must tell them so and give them two copies of a cancellation form.

The exceptions are narrow. A genuine emergency is excluded only when the homeowner contacted you and gives you a separate, dated and signed statement in their own handwriting that describes the emergency and waives the right to cancel. The repair exception covers repairs or maintenance the buyer asked for on their personal property, and a roof is part of the house, which is real property, so don't count on it for roof work. Ask your lawyer before relying on any exception.

Some states add their own rules on top, including for work paid by insurance. Put the notices your lawyer approves into your contract template once, and every homeowner gets them.

How a roof gets signed with SignMaster

1. 1

   Scan what the homeowner hands you

   In the iPhone and iPad app, scan the adjuster's scope, an ID or an old contract. Edges are found, pages flattened and the words made searchable. On a computer, Scan with your phone drops phone photos straight into a draft.

2. 2

   Sign at the kitchen table

   Choose Sign in person and hand over the phone or iPad. The homeowner is guided field by field, and in the app only your Face ID or passcode gets you back out. It works from the envelope page in any browser too.

3. 3

   Send the rest by link

   Spouse at work? They sign from a link on any phone or computer, no account needed. Set the signing order and a sign-by date, and automatic reminders do the chasing.

4. 4

   Everyone gets the signed copy

   When the last person signs, every party gets the sealed PDF with its certificate of completion: who signed, when, from which IP address, and a fingerprint of the original file.

Each send is an envelope: one or more documents going to one or more signers. The contract and its insurance addendum can travel together.

Set it up once, use it on every roof

Turn your contract into a template with fields for the homeowner, address, roof size and price. Calculated fields do the math, like squares times your price per square plus tear-off. Conditional fields stay hidden until they apply, like claim details that appear only when the homeowner ticks that insurance is paying. Alana, the AI assistant, can fill a draft from one sentence, and nothing goes out until you press send.

Roofers use bulk send less than trades with yearly renewals, but it's on every paid plan for a maintenance offer to past customers: one CSV, one envelope per row. A template can also become a public signing link or QR code, say for inspection requests on your website.

Spanish-speaking homeowners read the signing page, emails and consent in Spanish, and every signer can switch among 6 languages.

What it costs a roofing crew

Free covers 3 envelopes a month for one person, enough to try it on a real job. Solo is $15 a month with unlimited envelopes. Crew is $49 a month for 5 people, so your reps, project manager and office can all send, and each extra teammate is $8 a month. New workspaces get 14 days of Crew free, no card. See every plan.

What SignMaster doesn't do

• It doesn't measure roofs, write estimates or order materials. Bring the PDF your estimating tool makes.
• It doesn't collect payments or deposits.
• It sends signing requests by email, not text. You can copy a signer's link and text it yourself.
• It doesn't decide which forms or notices your state requires. That's a job for your lawyer.