Roofing Contractor billing weirdness

[Tiny]

I'm having a house re-roofed.   

I have the contract and the original agreement and paid 1/2 with a check made out to the "company" of the roofer.   
I am having a new roof put on my out of state house.   

I will have 2 "bills" to pay - one is for the original contracted amount - and one is for additional work that was done between the tear off of the old roof and the new underlayment being added. 

Here's the part that feels a little shady to me: 
The roofing contractor wants me to make the 2nd bill payment to Contractor Personal Name and not to the Contractor's Company Name.



The other final payment for the  original contract can be made out to Contractor's Company Name.  

I was NOT expecting this - I was expecting to pay the Contractor's Company Name for the entire bill.   

Is  the Contractor asking me for a "personal gift" of money? 



 

[busymom]

I wouldn't be comfortable writing a personal check to the contractor.  I'd just write it to the company name, (have the check written ahead of time), and say "oops, I forgot!"  

[TheOtherMe]

He isn't planning on paying taxes.  Make it out to the company.

[daisylu]

Sounds shady, at best. We just had our roof and gutters replaced. Paid half up front (which I was not onboard with) and half on completion. No way I would've written a check to a person and not a company.

[scgal]

Is it shady probably would I care probably not. It's none of my business how he runs his as long as my contract is fulfilled. The questions I would have is

Is the company insured
Is the contractor the owner of the company and if not does the company know this payment arrangement. 

Last year I had a new roof, siding and front door and some windows replaced around 45k the company I went with did not ask for anything down or any payment until the job was complete and we were satisfied. That is professionalism

[NoNamePerson]

Hope you don’t wind up with a lien on property down the road from someone saying they weren’t paid in full! it does happen. Keep really good documentation of all transactions like FOREVER.   

[Tiny]

The roofing contractor is the owner of the company.    Everything so far has been/gone as I expected (I've had roofs put on other houses).  

The "extra work" was also expected -  I don't have a clear indication of how old the old roof actually was due to the lax permitting practices in the past.   The extra work was for additional roof strapping and there was a very good chance that it wasn't done when the old roof was put on.  The house is old enough that the extra strapping wasn't a thing when the house was built.   

I did vet the Contractor - his company appears to be above board and his workers do good work.   And up until this end of the process request for the check to be made out to him and not his company he's been above board.  

I haven't seen any proof that permits were pulled - so I may hold the 'extra payment' hostage -   I will pay that money to him as soon as I see the permits and completed inspection on the County website.     
FWIW: those permits and inspection are what the insurance companies use to determine the viability of the roof.       Right now - the last roof permit on file for my house is 30 years old - and the roof that just got torn off was NOT 30 years old.    But that old permit is what all the insurances see and go "no, we can't insure your house". 

[skeeter]

Feb 4, 2023 8:15:41 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Hope you don’t wind up with a lien on property down the road from someone saying they weren’t paid in full! it does happen. Keep really good documentation of all transactions like FOREVER.   

This is really excellent advice and should be taken seriously as this scenario actually happened to a neighbor of mine.

The only differences is that it involved a siding company and the first check she made out was for the "deposit".  Relatives and friends told her not to do it, but since the guy was the owner of the company, she thought nothing of it and wrote the down payment check (which was sizable) out to him personally instead of his company.

It wasn't until several years later when she passed away and her estate was selling her home that the lien was discovered.  Estate could not get a clear (clean) title without paying off the lien first and could not prove the money was already paid as records were long gone.

Even if the above does not happen to you, this guy is trying to get paid "under the table" and avoid paying taxes.  If it were me, I'd tell him in no uncertain terms that I don't operate that way and would make check out to his company no matter what he says about it.

Just my nickel's worth (inflation).

[TheOtherMe]

The guy who did my shower remodel didn't ask for a dime to be paid until the actual shower and tile was done.  I knew then it was going to actually be finished.  I ended up paying him in 3 checks.  Since the shower door was a 3 week wait, I withheld money for that.  Waited a couple of days to make sure it didn't leak and sent off the final payment.

All checks were made out to his LLC.