How to check a roofer is legitimate, and the questions to ask

Check the company exists

If they trade as a limited company, look it up on the Companies House register: name, number, incorporation date, registered address and whether accounts are filed. It is free and it takes a minute. A company number on a quotation that does not match the name on the register is worth asking about.

If they are a sole trader, that is entirely legitimate — but you should still have a full name, a fixed address and a landline or a consistent contact rather than only a mobile.

Ask for the insurance certificate

Public liability insurance, in the trading name, in date, with a cover level. Ask for the certificate rather than a verbal assurance; a genuine contractor sends it without hesitating. If someone else’s scaffold is being used, that has its own insurance and its own competent-person requirements.

Accreditations: check them, do not just read them

Trade body and scheme logos are easy to put on a website. Every legitimate scheme has a searchable public register — look the company up on it by name or number. A membership that lapsed three years ago still leaves the logo on the van.

Ask to see recent local work

Photographs of completed jobs, and ideally an address in the area you can look at from the street. A roofer working locally will have both. Reviews are useful but easy to fabricate; look for volume, recency and detail rather than a perfect score.

On deposits

A deposit toward materials on a substantial job is normal practice. What is not: a large cash deposit demanded before anything is ordered, pressure to pay today for a discount, or a request to pay into a personal account. Pay by card or bank transfer to the trading name, and keep the paperwork.

Get the quotation in writing, itemised

It should say what is being done, what materials, what access, what is excluded, how variations will be priced, the payment schedule and the guarantee. A single figure on a compliment slip is not a quotation, and it is impossible to compare or to enforce.

Understand what a guarantee actually covers

Ask three questions: what does it cover — workmanship, materials, or both; how long for; and who honours it if the company stops trading. An insurance-backed guarantee is underwritten by a third party and survives the contractor; a company’s own written guarantee does not. Neither is dishonest, but they are very different things and the difference is worth knowing before you choose on price.

Your cancellation rights

For most contracts agreed in your home, you have a statutory cooling-off period of fourteen days in which you can cancel, and the trader must tell you about it in writing. Work that starts inside that period does not remove the right, though it can change what you owe. Being told there is no cooling-off period is itself a warning sign.

The warning signs

• They knocked on your door, or "happened to be working on a roof nearby".
• They spotted a problem from the street and can start today.
• Cash only, or payment to a personal account.
• Pressure to decide immediately, or a price that expires this afternoon.
• No written quotation, no company details, no address.
• A quotation dramatically below every other one, which usually means it does not include the same work.
• Any suggestion that scaffolding is not needed for work that plainly needs it.

None of these is proof of anything on its own. Two or three together is a reason to get another price from someone you found yourself.