Do Houston Roof Warranties Transfer When You Sell?

A newer roof on your home should give you some negotiating power when it’s time to sell. Most sellers in Houston figure this out way too late, though. That roof warranty that they were counting on to help close the deal either can’t be transferred to the new owner, or it takes a few steps that never got done. That “lifetime warranty” your contractor mentioned 5 years back probably only covers the shingles themselves and likely became worthless to the buyer once the property was sold.

Houston is harder for this than most other markets. Local buyers already know that storm damage is going to happen at some point, and their biggest concern is getting stuck with a $16,000 replacement bill after a bad hail storm comes through. Buyers will either ask you to drop the price, or they’ll just walk away and look at other properties when you can’t track down the warranty paperwork or have already missed that 60-day window to get it transferred. One missed deadline, or one skipped $200 fee to pass it along, can cost you a few thousand dollars when it comes time to close the deal!

Roof warranties vary quite a bit from one to the next, and the steps to transfer them will depend on who issued the warranty. Manufacturer warranties (the ones that cover defects in the shingles) are usually easy to hand over to a new homeowner. Contractor workmanship warranties are where it gets messy. A lot of contractors don’t allow transfers at all, or if they do, you’ll need to pay renewal fees and meet some pretty strict deadlines to make sure that the coverage stays active. Not knowing what type of warranty is actually on your roof makes it almost impossible to give the buyers accurate information. The coverage might already be void by the time the sale closes, leaving the new owner with no protection.

That’s the situation with your roof warranty when you sell your Houston home.

Roof Warranty Types and Transfer Rules

Most roof warranties fall into two main categories, and you’ll need both of them. The manufacturer’s warranty is what protects the materials themselves – we’re talking about your shingles, underlayment and any other products that went onto your roof. The contractor’s warranty is different because it protects the labor and installation work that your roofer performed when they put everything together.

Each warranty covers something different. A manufacturer’s warranty protects you if the shingles themselves are defective or if they break down way earlier than they should. A contractor’s warranty covers the problems with the installation, if something went wrong when the crew was putting everything together on your roof.

One benefit of a manufacturer’s warranty is that most of them will carry over to the new owner if you want to sell your house later. GAF and Owens Corning are very popular in the Houston area, and they’ve made their warranty transfers pretty painless for whoever buys the home next. CertainTeed does something very similar with their material coverage as well.

Contractor warranties work a bit differently. The warranty from your contractor is there to cover installation errors and any problems with the quality of the work itself. Plenty of roofing contractors in Houston write these warranties to only cover the original homeowner – the person who actually paid for the installation. Some contractors will move over their workmanship warranty to a new homeowner, though you’ll usually need to meet certain conditions before they agree. Other contractors refuse to move over their workmanship warranty at all.

When you’re ready to list your house for sale, make sure to hunt down your roofing paperwork, mainly your warranty documents.

Meet the Deadlines for Your Transfer

Most roof warranties will give you a limited window to finish up the transfer, and this window usually falls between 30 and 90 days after the home sale officially closes. The manufacturers are the ones setting these deadlines, and they’re pretty strict about enforcing them.

Miss that deadline, and the warranty gets voided. After that point, you can’t get it back or try to reinstate it later – it’s just gone permanently. The new homeowner will be left without any warranty coverage at all, even if the roof is still in great shape and has years of life left in it.

The best time to start the transfer process is as early as you can. Most sellers make the mistake of accepting an offer first, and only then do they start to take care of the warranty transfer. The better approach is to take care of this paperwork right when you first list the house. You’ll have a much more comfortable buffer that way if the manufacturer asks for extra documentation or if processing the transfer just takes a while.

Each warranty is going to have its own set of requirements for when you’ll have to register it. Some of them want you to take care of the registration before the closing date even happens. Other warranties will let the new owner register it after they’ve already taken ownership of the property. I’d recommend taking a close look at the fine print in your paperwork to see which category your warranty falls into. Most manufacturers do a decent job of laying out this information in the warranty documents themselves, so you should be able to find what you’ll need to know in there.

Documents You Need for the Sale

Planning to sell your home means one of the first priorities on your to-do list is to track down the paperwork from when your roof was installed. Your original warranty certificate needs to be in that stack because it’s proof of what coverage you have and how many years of protection are still left. The installation invoice matters just as much since it’s your proof of who did the work and when the job was actually completed.

Any of the inspection reports from roof check-ups over the years can be valuable documentation to have on hand. These reports show that a professional actually came out and evaluated its condition on a regular basis. Most buyers want to see this type of paper trail, and warranty companies usually need proof of regular maintenance before they’ll hand over the coverage to a new homeowner.

A lot of homeowners will store these documents in a file cabinet or maybe even in a safe deposit box at their bank. Another common place is in a kitchen drawer where they’re quick to grab or filed away with the other home improvement paperwork. But paper documents tend to disappear over time, or they get shuffled around and mixed in with the other random household papers you’ve accumulated over the years.

Replacements are usually available. Your first step should be to call the contractor who installed your roof and ask for copies of the invoice and warranty documents. Most contractors hold onto their records for a minimum of a few years. For the manufacturer’s warranty, you should contact the company directly with your address and an approximate date range for when the installation was completed.

You should collect these documents well before your home goes on the market. Buyers usually ask to see warranty information once they enter into their inspection period, and you don’t want to be scrambling around trying to find everything at the last minute. Your agent is going to need copies of all these documents to include in the disclosure paperwork they put together for the buyers. The title company will probably want them too as you get closer to the closing. Make copies of each document in advance so everything is ready to hand over to your buyer when the time comes.

Transfer Mistakes That Void Your Coverage

The biggest mistake homeowners make is not realizing that warranties don’t automatically move over to the new owner – you actually have to make it happen yourself. Almost every manufacturer wants you to fill out the paperwork to pass it along, and they want it done before the sale officially closes. Waiting until after the deal is done and the papers are signed means you’ll probably miss the deadline completely.

Another common issue happens when the seller never mentions the warranty to the buyer at all. The new homeowner moves in and has no idea that their roof could still have years of coverage available on it. Eventually, the buyer might realize what went wrong. But at that point, there’s no way to go back and get it switched over correctly.

The warranty transfer comes with fees that buyers miss all the time. Most buyers assume the warranty just comes with the house, and they won’t have to pay anything extra for it. Then they find out about a fee that needs to be paid within a set window. Miss that deadline and the warranty goes void, even if you did everything else correctly.

What you’re told verbally doesn’t carry any weight with warranty coverage. A salesperson can tell you again and again that the warranty will pass along just fine. If you don’t have the right paperwork actually being sent to the manufacturer, though, those assurances don’t mean anything. The new owner walks away thinking everything is fine. But they have no warranty protection at all, regardless of what they were told.

Sellers sometimes have no idea what warranty they even have on their home. Most of them assume it can be handed off to whoever buys the house next. Well, the fine print usually says otherwise, and by the time the new homeowner figures this out, it’s way too late – the warranty was never going to move over to them.

The registration is another common step that gets missed all of the time. The paperwork to move it over gets submitted, and the manufacturer reviews it and then approves it, and everyone assumes the job is done. The paperwork looks complete, and the new owner forgets to take that last step and register the warranty under their own name. If you don’t have that final registration, the new homeowner won’t be able to file any warranty claims, even if everything was approved and the paperwork says that it’s transferable. Most of these problems could be avoided if homeowners just paid a little more attention to the fine print during the process, yet I see this happen with homeowners all the time.

How to Transfer Your Home Warranty

Contact your warranty provider at least 60 days before the house goes up for sale. This gives you time to learn about how their handoff process works and to get any questions answered along the way. Most warranty providers are going to need a heads-up on this anyway, and when you contact them, they’ll send over the forms and paperwork you’ll need to get everything started.

Once you have a buyer lined up, one of the first steps you should take is to contact your provider and ask for the official handoff documents. They’ll send you the paperwork and will ask for the relevant info about whoever is buying from you. Most of this information won’t actually be ready until you have an accepted purchase agreement in hand and you’re close to the closing date.

Handoff fees are going to run you between $25 and $100 for most warranty plans on the market. The payment process can be different from company to company – some will allow you to take care of it right at the closing table, and others are going to want that fee submitted ahead of time. It’s worth checking with your particular warranty provider to see which option they use; that way, you’re not scrambling to work out payment info when you’re supposed to be closing.

Your agent is going to need copies of your warranty documents, and the sooner you can get them over, the better. Your agent has to know what type of coverage is in place and if it can be transferred over to the new owner. This information comes in useful when buyers looking at the house start asking questions, and the sale agreement can also be written with the correct warranty info spelled out.

The title company is usually the one who takes care of this when a warranty needs to be handed off at closing. It’s actually pretty convenient because they’ll coordinate the paperwork for you and make sure that the fees get taken out of the correct accounts. Some warranties are set up a little differently, though, and with those ones, you’ll have to send in the handoff documents on your own after the sale has already closed.

Once the closing is done and finalized, you should follow up with your warranty provider to make sure that the handoff went through correctly. The new owner should receive their own confirmation paperwork with their name on it within a few weeks (sometimes it takes a bit longer, but that’s the usual timeline). If there was a problem with the paperwork or if the payment didn’t process the way that it should have, you want to spot that early and get it fixed before it turns into a bigger problem.

Different warranty providers handle handoffs in their own way. Some of them include the handoff as part of the closing process itself and bundle everything together. Other providers handle it as a separate transaction between you and the buyer. The best you can do is to contact your provider and ask how they handle it, so you’ll know what needs to happen and when you’re responsible for each step.

A Secure Home Starts with a Solid Roof

A warranty transfer doesn’t have to be hard or eat up weeks of your time. Just take care of it before that “For Sale” sign goes up in your yard. With the steps we just covered (the warranty type, your paperwork, the deadlines, and common mistakes to avoid), you can knock these out well before any buyers start scheduling tours of your home. Take care of them early, and you won’t be in crisis mode at the last minute when a buyer’s inspector starts asking questions about your coverage or when the closing day is a few days away.

Buyers want some protection and reassurance that they won’t run into expensive repairs the second they move in. A home warranty that can pass over to the new owner does a great job of giving them that confidence, and this extra layer of confidence could be what gets you multiple bids fast instead of watching your home just sit there week after week. It can also help you justify your asking price and make your listing more attractive when you’re competing against similar homes in your area. Buyers see when your paperwork is organized for them to access. More often than not, it ends up being one of the factors that matter when a buyer is weighing your home against other similar options in the area.

If you have any questions about your warranty or need roof work before the sale, Roof Republic can help out. We work with homeowners all across the Greater Houston Area – our main service areas are Magnolia, Tomball, Cypress and Conroe, and we take care of roofing projects for homes and businesses. A free inspection will show you what condition your roof is in, and our team can give you solid advice on what needs to be fixed before the listing.