What Your Roofing Contract Must Contain in Texas and Florida | Hommy
What Your Roofing Contract Must Contain in Texas and Florida
A Florida roofing contract missing one notice can be voided within 10 days. A Texas storm contract without the deductible paragraph is not compliant. Here is what the law actually requires.
Hommy
July 18, 2026 · 13 min read
In Florida, if a roofing contract omits the required notice about prohibited practices, the homeowner may void it within 10 days of signing. In Texas, a storm-damage contract of 1,000 dollars or more that expects payment from insurance proceeds and lacks the deductible paragraph is not compliant. Neither of those is obscure, and both are entirely avoidable.
This is a checklist of what the law requires and what protects you. It is not a template you can copy.
Get your contract drafted by an attorney
This is general information, not legal advice, and it is not a contract. Requirements differ between Texas and Florida, they change (Florida amended its roofing notices in 2025), and a defective contract is worse than no contract because it can be voidable against you. Use this to brief an attorney in your state, not to write your own agreement.
Texas: no licence, but real requirements
Texas has no state roofing licence, which surprises people, and it leads some contractors to assume the paperwork is loose too. It is not. The requirements are just scattered across different codes rather than sitting in a licensing statute.
The insurance deductible notice
This is the one most storm contracts get wrong. Any contract of 1,000 dollars or more, where the seller reasonably expects to be paid wholly or partly from property insurance proceeds, must carry a notice in at least 12-point bold type stating that the insured must pay their deductible and that it is illegal for the seller to help them avoid paying it.
If your storm-damage contract does not contain that paragraph, it is not compliant. And the same statute makes it an offence, a Class B misdemeanour, to pay, waive, absorb, rebate or credit the deductible.
Disaster remediation contracts, which are stricter
If you are working in a declared disaster area, Texas imposes a rule that surprises contractors used to taking deposits: you may not require any payment before beginning work, and you may not require partial payments beyond an amount reasonably proportionate to work performed and materials delivered.
The contract must be in writing and must state that in conspicuous bold type of at least 10 points. Violating it is a deceptive trade practice, which opens up remedies that ordinary breach of contract does not.
So the standard "one third down to get on the schedule" does not travel into a declared disaster area. That is the single most common compliance failure after a Texas storm.
The construction account
Under the Property Code, a contractor working under a written contract to improve a residential homestead exceeding 5,000 dollars must hold trust funds in a designated construction account at a financial institution, with the bank statement identifying it as such.
Homeowners are advised by the state to ask for written verification that the account exists. Being able to produce that immediately is a small credibility win at the kitchen table.
If you ever want a lien on a homestead
Texas homestead lien rules are strict, and they are strict against you. To fix a lien on a homestead the contract must be in writing and executed before any labour or materials are furnished, it must be signed by both spouses if the owner is married, and it must be filed with the county clerk.
Miss any one of those and no valid lien attaches, regardless of how much you are owed. This is why the paperwork sequence matters: signing after the crew starts, or getting one spouse to sign, quietly destroys your security.
“A Texas homestead lien needs a written contract signed before work starts, signed by both spouses, and filed with the county clerk. Get the sequence wrong and you have no lien at all.”
The Hommy Team
Florida: four notices, and one of them is new
Florida licenses roofing contractors and regulates the contract itself in detail. There are four separate notice requirements, and getting them wrong has different consequences in each case.
1. The prohibited practices notice
A contract to repair or replace a roof must contain notice that the contractor may not engage in the practices the statute prohibits: offering rebates, gifts, gift cards, cash, coupons or a deductible waiver in exchange for a roof inspection or a claim, taking referral compensation where insurance proceeds are payable, or adjusting a claim without a public adjuster licence.
If that notice is missing, the residential property owner may void the contract within 10 days of signing. Fines run up to 10,000 dollars per violation.
2. The new insurance-verification notice, added in 2025
Florida changed its roofing contract rules in 2025 and a lot of contract templates in circulation have not caught up.
The state-of-emergency cancellation notice type size was lowered from 18-point to 14-point bold, and a new 14-point bold notice was added to the signature page of residential roof contracts. It tells the owner that if the work relates to an insurance claim they should contact their insurance company to verify coverage, including claims, deductibles and policy terms, before signing.
If your Florida contract still says 18-point, or has no signature-page insurance notice at all, it predates the change. Worth checking today rather than after a complaint.
3. The Recovery Fund notice
Every residential contract over 2,500 dollars must carry the Florida Homeowners Construction Recovery Fund notice, followed by the licensing board current address and phone number.
4. The construction lien law warning
Direct contracts with an owner over 2,500 dollars on one to four family residential property must carry the construction lien law warning, in capitalised bold type, on the front page or on a separate signed and dated page.
One limit worth knowing: omitting it does not automatically bar lien enforcement against someone who was not adversely affected by the omission. But do not treat that as a reason to skip it.
Deposits and the clock they start
Florida has no general cap on deposits, contrary to what a lot of contractors and homeowners believe. What it has is a trigger.
Taking more than 10 percent of the contract price up front on residential work obligates you to apply for permits within 30 days of the payment, and to start work within 90 days of permits being issued, absent just cause. Failure carries criminal penalties graduated by the amount taken, and intending to give the money back eventually is not a defence.
That is worth internalising before you take a large deposit and then get weathered out for a season.
Advertising is regulated too, not just the contract
Florida requires prohibited advertisements to carry disclosures at a specified size, stating that the consumer is responsible for the deductible and that waiving it is felony fraud. Door hangers, business cards, magnets, flyers and email all count as advertising. Your licence number must also appear on advertising and jobsite signage.
The clauses that protect you, in either state
Beyond what the law mandates, these are the terms that decide how disputes go. None of them are exotic, and their absence is what makes a job go sideways.
Scope, itemised. Tear-off and layer count, decking allowance with a per-sheet unit rate, underlayment and ice barrier by product, starter, field shingles by brand and line, hip and ridge, valley method, each flashing type, ventilation, drip edge, cleanup, permit. If a second contractor could not build the identical roof from your document, the scope is not defined.
A written deck contingency. State the per-sheet rate, that you bill only for sheets actually replaced, and that you photograph each one. This is the single most common source of change-order arguments.
A change order clause requiring changes in writing and signed before the work is done. Verbal change orders are how you end up eating them.
A payment schedule tied to milestones, drafted to comply with your state rules on deposits and disaster-area work.
Weather and delay terms, defining what happens when the job stops and who bears the standby cost.
Your workmanship warranty: what it covers, how long, what voids it, and whether it transfers. Say explicitly that it is separate from the manufacturer warranty, and who registers that.
Access and site conditions: driveway use, dumpster placement, protection of landscaping, and what happens if the driveway cannot bear a load.
A clause covering unforeseen conditions beyond decking, such as rotten fascia, undersized framing, or undisclosed layers.
Dispute resolution and attorney fees, drafted knowingly rather than copied.
Lien rights, and in Texas the homestead sequence above if you want them to exist at all.
The two clauses you must not put in
Anything waiving, rebating, absorbing or crediting the insurance deductible. Class B misdemeanour in Texas, felony insurance fraud in Florida. The "advertising agreement" dodge, where the homeowner is paid for a yard sign and a review in an amount that happens to equal the deductible, has already been prosecuted.
Anything appointing you to negotiate, adjust, or settle the insurance claim, including a power of attorney. Texas law says a contractor may not act as a public adjuster for property where they are or may be providing services, regardless of holding a licence or a power of attorney. Florida bars interpreting policy provisions, advising on coverage, or adjusting a claim without a public adjuster licence.
Contingency agreements built around handling the claim are the usual vehicle for both. If your agreement is structured around what you will do with the insurance company rather than what you will do to the roof, it needs rewriting.
Cancellation rights, and why you should not rely on them lapsing
Florida gives a 10-day cancellation right for contracts entered into based on events under a Governor declared emergency, running to 10 days after signing or the official start date, whichever comes first.
Texas gives a three business day right to cancel sales solicited somewhere other than the seller place of business, and requires written notice of that right plus cancellation forms. Be careful with this one: the statute has exemptions, including transactions the buyer initiated for repairs and transactions to meet an emergency, so it may not apply to every roofing job. Do not structure your process around the assumption that it does or does not.
The practical posture is the same either way: if a homeowner wants out in the first few days, let them out cleanly. Fighting a cancellation is expensive, and in Florida a defective notice can hand them the right anyway.
