Texas is where I’m based and the only state whose law I read for this. There, you can lien a homestead only if the written contract was signed before any work was done or material delivered. Both spouses have to sign if the homeowner is married, and the contract has to be filed with the county clerk. A homeowner who disputes the work in good faith can lawfully hold back up to 110% of the amount in dispute on a detached single-family house. One who wants to sue over a defect has to give you 60 days’ written notice first, and a chance to inspect and offer a repair.
GAF and Owens Corning won’t pay for an install callback under their standard warranties, which don’t cover workmanship.
Google won’t take down a one-star review because you disagree with it, and your reply sits under it in public. In September I went through 1,061 DFW roofing profiles rated 4.8 or higher with at least 30 reviews. Of the 298 that cleared my other checks and had a one- or two-star review, 35 owners had answered it with contempt, a little under one in eight.
I run a marketing company, so the reviews are what I’ve measured, and nothing I sell fixes a contract. Outside Texas, check your own state’s or province’s rules, and since I’m not a lawyer, have a construction attorney read your contract wherever you work.
A Texas homestead lien needs a contract signed before any work or material
Miss any part of that rule on a homestead, including both spouses’ signatures and the county clerk filing, and you can’t lien the house later. Depending on the job, Texas also requires up to four notices in or with the contract:
- The Chapter 27 notice about construction defects, in 10-point bold. Leave it out and the homeowner can collect a $500 civil penalty.
- The “IMPORTANT NOTICE” warning on a homestead home-improvement contract, in at least 10-point bold, with any binding-arbitration clause in 10-point bold too. Without the warning, the homeowner has a claim under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
- The deductible notice, in at least 12-point bold, on a contract of $1,000 or more expected to be paid from a property insurance claim. Waiving or rebating the deductible without the insurer’s consent is a Class B misdemeanor.
- The “Know your rights” disclosure, handed over before signing, which warns that “An oral promise that is not included in the written agreement may not be enforceable under Texas law.”
So put your workmanship warranty, and anything your rep promises at the kitchen table, in the contract. A contractor on r/Roofing told homeowners he’d cover a repair, and then the price went up by $3,500. An owner told him “you need a disclaimer in your contract you’re not liable for damages caused by vibrations or penetrations.” Have your attorney word any clause like that.
Leave out any clause about reviews. In the US, the Consumer Review Fairness Act makes a form-contract term illegal if it restricts a customer’s review or charges a fee or penalty for one. Roofing Contracts and 1099 Rules: What a New Owner Needs in Writing covers the rest of the paperwork.
GAF’s and Owens Corning’s standard warranties leave the install callback to you
GAF’s standard shingle warranty lists workmanship as not covered, and GAF says it covers only inherent manufacturing defects, so damage from poor ventilation isn’t covered either. Owens Corning’s standard warranty and its System Protection show no workmanship coverage. Both makers cover installation mistakes only under upgraded warranties, and GAF’s two pledges also cover misapplied flashings at valleys, dormers, chimneys and plumbing vents:
- GAF Silver Pledge: 10 years of misapplication coverage, offered only by Certified Plus or Master Elite contractors.
- GAF Golden Pledge: 25 or 30 years of non-prorated misapplication coverage, offered only by Master Elite contractors.
- Owens Corning Preferred Protection: workmanship covered for the first 10 years.
- Owens Corning Platinum Protection: limited lifetime coverage, reduced by the roof’s age after 25 years, installed only by Platinum contractors.
GAF’s enhanced warranties have to be registered, and GAF tells homeowners to call if no copy arrives within 60 days of installation, so register one the week you finish. I didn’t check CertainTeed’s terms.
A roofing owner posted a Facebook video about a full replacement that leaked two weeks later because he’d installed something that wasn’t meant for that roof, and he said he’d fix it. A commercial roofer in Denver got the other kind of callback: when a storm-damaged EPDM roof he’d replaced leaked a year later, the customer blamed the materials and demanded a new roof. The owner wrote on r/Construction that the Carlisle product should last at least 20 years, though the cause was still unsettled. On a shingle roof, whether the install or the material failed decides whether a standard GAF or Owens Corning warranty helps at all.
I couldn’t find a published callback rate or reserve for roofing. An r/Construction commenter who didn’t say what they do suggested setting aside 3% of every job, which is one person’s rule of thumb.
Texas lets you inspect and offer a repair before a homeowner can sue
The Texas Residential Construction Liability Act gives you a callback before a lawsuit. A homeowner suing over a construction defect has to send you written notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, at least 60 days before filing. Within 35 days of getting it you can ask to inspect, up to three times, and within 60 days of receiving it you can make a written offer to settle or repair. If the homeowner turns down a reasonable offer, they can recover no more than its fair market value plus the fees they’d run up before turning it down. Courts decide case by case what counts as reasonable, so have your attorney help word the offer.
A Texas homeowner can hold back part of the final payment while your lien clock runs
Under the Texas prompt-pay law, in a good-faith dispute over a detached single-family home, the homeowner can withhold up to 110% of the difference between what you bill and what they say they owe. An argument over whether the work was done properly counts as good faith.
In August a roofer on r/Roofing posted that after his crew’s cleanup and conduct problems, a homeowner had refused the final invoice and offered to pay for materials only. He expected to be out about $10,000 if he agreed, had already offered $1,000 off, and was weighing a notice of intent to lien. “I suspect he’ll leave a terrible review if I don’t agree to it,” he wrote.
A Texas roofer working directly for the homeowner on a residential job has until the 15th day of the third month after the month the job was finished or stopped to file a lien affidavit. A roof finished in May has until August 15, and a repair ticket runs on the same clock. A Texas justice court can hear an unpaid invoice of up to $20,000 but can’t enforce a lien on land. Roofing Cash Flow: Depreciation Checks, Final Payments and Liens goes further into liens.
35 of 298 well-rated DFW roofers with a bad review answered it with contempt
Between them, those 35 owners called reviewers liars, threatened legal action, mocked customers and, in at least one reply, posted a customer’s phone number and employer. Another 70 never replied and 60 gave mixed replies. I didn’t sort the other 133 or read every reply myself, so treat the split as approximate, and I didn’t measure whether a contemptuous reply cost anyone signed jobs.
One owner wrote calm public replies, and I still ruled his company out, because two customers’ reviews described him cursing at them and threatening them. A calm reply didn’t outweigh what they said happened in person.
A high average can also hide one complaint repeated. Separately from that sweep, I looked at a roofer rated 4.8 from 94 reviews, 89 of them five stars. Four of its five one-star reviews, from four different reviewers between 2019 and 2025, describe a canvasser at the door. Two say an insurance claim was opened off a signature collected there, and two say the rep walked past a no-soliciting sign. The owner answered the latest one professionally and said they would retrain. A homeowner comparing roofers can read those same one-stars.
Google won’t take a review down because you disagree with it
Google removes only reviews that break its policies. You can report one through the Reviews Management Tool and appeal once, and Google says the evaluation typically takes several days.
Four things owners do after a bad review can come back on them:
- Offering a discount to change it. A discount to settle the bill is a business decision. Tie it to the review and Google’s Maps policy forbids it, and as I read it, the FTC’s 2024 review rule does too.
- Posting the customer’s details. Google counts doxxing as harassment and bars posting someone’s personal information without their consent.
- Threatening the reviewer. Since October 21, 2024, an FTC rule has made it unfair or deceptive in the US to answer a review with “an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation” to stop it or get it removed. A false accusation counts only if you knew it was false or were reckless about whether it was true.
- Suing the reviewer. Under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, someone sued over what they said can move to dismiss within 60 days of being served, and if the court dismisses, it has to award them court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. Whether that covers a suit over a review is for an attorney to say, and Texas justice courts don’t hear defamation suits at all.
Your reply is public, and the reviewer can still change the review
Google posts your reply as the business once it passes a content-policy check. The reviewer gets notified and can still change the review after reading your reply. You can edit or delete the reply later.
The study I can point to covers hotels: in Marketing Science in 2017, Proserpio and Zervas found that hotels that started responding to reviews saw ratings rise 0.12 stars and review volume rise 12%. I haven’t seen it tested on roofers or Google profiles, so take it as a direction only.
So write the reply about what you found when you went back and what you offered to fix. If the one-star is fake, How Roofers Get More Google Reviews (and Deal With Fake Ones) covers flagging it.
Fix the paperwork now, and answer the next one-star with what you found
- Before the next contract goes out: write in your workmanship warranty and anything your reps promise, and have a construction attorney check it against your state’s rules, which in Texas means the four notices and the homestead signing rule.
- The day you finish: put the lien deadline on the calendar and register any GAF upgrade.
- When a certified defect letter arrives: in Texas, ask to inspect within 35 days, and get your attorney’s help with any written offer.
- When a one-star lands: read it alongside your other low reviews for a complaint that repeats, then reply.
The review and your reply both sit on your Google profile, the same listing homeowners find on the map. To see where it shows up, run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.