The Cash Job With No Contract and No Permit
You own a small roofing company registered in an Illinois municipality that requires both a local roofing contractor registration and a permit for re-roofing. A homeowner with a 22-square, 15-year-old asphalt roof accepts your verbal price of $14,200 for a full tear-off and offers to pay in three cash installments with no written agreement, 'to keep it simple.' She asks you to skip the $180 village permit because it 'takes two weeks,' and to add a bathroom exhaust termination and patch her detached garage 'while the crew is there.' Your foreman reminds you that last spring a customer refused to sign a change order for rotted decking and then withheld $3,000 at final payment.
1. Do you accept the job on these terms? Identify the legal and practical exposure and list the terms you would insist on before mobilizing.
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Do not mobilize on a handshake.
- Written contract. Illinois' Home Repair and Remodeling Act (815 ILCS 513) governs home repair and remodeling work over $1,000 and requires a written contract plus delivery of the state consumer-rights pamphlet. Working orally turns price, scope, and payment into a swearing contest, invites a consumer-fraud counterclaim, and weakens your ability to collect.
- Permit. The village ordinance controls, not the owner's timeline. Unpermitted work exposes you to stop-work orders, doubled fees, demolition of finished work, and - the real loss - no inspection of ice barrier, underlayment, and fastening that both the code and the shingle warranty depend on.
- Cash schedule. Cash is not illegal, but unreceipted payments destroy your evidence trail and your leverage. Insist on a deposit plus progress payments by check with written receipts.
- Registration and insurance. Confirm your local registration is current and that your certificate of insurance is in force.
Contract must state: scope and material specification, price and payment schedule, a decking unit price, a written change-order clause, warranty terms, start and completion dates, and lien notice. If she refuses, walking away is the cheaper outcome.
2. How should the bathroom vent termination and the garage patch be handled?
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Both are out-of-scope work and require a signed, priced change order before anyone climbs the ladder.
- Bathroom exhaust: it must terminate outdoors through a properly flashed penetration - never into the attic or under the soffit. A new roof penetration changes the water-shedding detail, so specify the flashing (a manufactured boot correctly sized to the pipe, not a field-fabricated collar), confirm the location does not conflict with the ridge vent or a valley, and check that the fan's duct run and termination meet the mechanical code.
- Garage: it is a separate structure. It likely needs its own permit and inspection, and it may fall outside the scope your insurance and crew schedule cover. Price it separately and confirm the permit status before starting.
Handled verbally as 'while you're up there,' both items become unpaid labor and open-ended liability for work no one inspected.
3. Using last spring's withheld-payment incident, describe the documentation and payment structure that would have protected you.
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The loss came from doing first and papering later. The fix is procedural:
- Unit pricing in the contract. State a price per sheet for sheathing replacement, so concealed damage has a pre-agreed value instead of an argument.
- Concealed-conditions clause. Require written notice of the discovery within a set time and a signed change order before the extra work proceeds.
- Daily field reports with time-stamped photos of the deck before covering - the single best defense against 'you damaged it' claims.
- Payment schedule tied to milestones and inspection, not to the owner's subjective satisfaction, with a final payment that is not so large it becomes ransom.
- Preserve lien rights. Under the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act a contractor contracting directly with the owner must record its claim within the statutory window after last furnishing labor or materials (commonly four months - confirm current deadlines and any owner-occupied residence notice rules with counsel).
With those in place, the owner's $3,000 holdback becomes a documented debt rather than a negotiation.