Contractor Red Flags: How to Spot a Bad Roofer Before You’ve Paid Them

Everyone in Johannesburg has a story. The neighbour who paid 70% upfront and never saw the contractor again. The cousin whose new “waterproofing” lasted six weeks. The colleague who got a fantastic price on a roof repair, only to discover six months later that the entire job had been done with the wrong materials.

Bad contractors are not a rare occurrence in South Africa. They’re an industry. And roofing,  because the work is largely invisible once it’s done, sitting metres above your head where you can’t inspect it, attracts more chancers than most other trades.

The good news is that the warning signs are almost always there before you sign anything. People don’t usually get burned because the red flags were hidden. They get burned because they didn’t know what to look for, or they did know and ignored their gut.

This is what to actually watch for, drawn from twenty years of being called in to fix other people’s disasters.

The quoting stage: where most red flags appear

The vast majority of warning signs show up before any work has started. The way a contractor quotes you tells you almost everything you need to know about how they’ll work.

The driveway quote

If a contractor stands on your driveway, looks up at your roof, and gives you a price — walk away. There is no roof problem in existence that can be diagnosed from ground level. Not one.

A proper roofing assessment requires the contractor to get onto your roof with a ladder, walk the roof surface (carefully and only where it’s safe), check the flashings, inspect the gutters, and look at the underlay condition and do a correct and in-depth inspection. That takes time. Anyone giving you a number after a five-minute visit is guessing — and you’ll be the one paying for the guess to be wrong.

The suspiciously round number

When a quote comes in at exactly R15,000 or R30,000 with no breakdown, it’s not a quote. It’s a finger in the air. Real quotes have line items: with clear discriptions of what needs to be done line by line, VAT shown separately. If you can’t see what you’re paying for, you’re not really seeing the quote at all.

This matters because round-number quotes are almost always one of two things — either deliberately under-priced to win the job (and the contractor will hit you with “extras” later), or padded with a generous margin because nobody bothered to actually scope the work.

The quote that comes in dramatically lower than everyone else

If you’ve got three quotes and one is significantly cheaper than the other two, that’s not a deal. That’s a warning. The cheap quote is cheap because something has been left out — usually the things you can’t see. Underlay. Proper flashings. The right grade of waterproofing membrane. The labour to actually do the prep work properly.

The roofing industry has a saying: there’s always a reason a quote is cheap, and you’ll usually find out what it is in about eighteen months.

The verbal-only quote

If a contractor won’t put their quote in writing, the conversation is over. Verbal quotes exist so they can be denied later. We’ve seen homeowners hand over deposits on the back of a handshake and a WhatsApp voice note, and they’ve got nothing to hold the contractor to when things go wrong.

A written quote should include: scope of work as detailed as possible, payment schedule, warranty terms, and the company’s full registered details and VAT number on a professional letterhead.

The credentials stage: what they should be able to prove

A real contractor has paperwork. A chancer has excuses about why their paperwork isn’t available right now.

No physical address or registered business

If the company doesn’t have a verifiable physical address, you’ve got a problem. A truck and a phone number is not a business. Look for a registered company name, a CIPC registration, and ideally premises you can drive past.

No industry accreditations

In South African roofing specifically, look for membership of the Professional Roof Repair and Waterproofing Association (PRAWA) for waterproofing and roofing work, and the Waterproofing Trade Association of Southern Africa (WTASA). For new builds and any major construction work, NHBRC registration is required by law.

These accreditations are not just badges. They mean the contractor has been independently assessed, carries the insurance they’re supposed to carry, and is accountable to a body other than themselves. If they don’t have any of these, ask why.

No public reviews, no track record

Every legitimate contractor in 2025 has a digital footprint. Google reviews. A website. Photos of past work. Client references they can put you in touch with directly.

The contractor with no online presence at all isn’t necessarily a scam — but combined with any other red flag on this list, it’s a serious problem. Bad contractors rebrand frequently, precisely because their reputations follow them.

The vague portfolio

“Show me some work you’ve done.” If they fumble, send you two cellphone photos, or give you addresses you can’t verify, that’s the answer. A contractor who has actually been doing this for years has a portfolio they’re proud of and references they’re keen for you to call.

The payment terms: where the actual scams live

The payment structure of a quote is where chancers do most of their damage.

The 70% (or higher) deposit

For a standard roof repair, anything above a 50% deposit is unusual. Anything above 70% is a red flag the size of a billboard. The deposit covers materials and mobilisation — not the contractor’s holiday.

If a contractor demands 70% upfront, they’re protecting themselves against having to actually finish the job to a standard you’d be happy paying for. It’s the structure of someone who plans to underperform on the back end.

The work itself: red flags during the job

Even after you’ve signed, the warning signs continue.

Materials arrive that you weren’t quoted for

If the membrane that arrives on site isn’t the brand specified in the quote, stop work and ask why. The cheap substitution game is one of the oldest tricks in the industry — quote for the premium product, install the budget version, pocket the difference.

Nobody supervises the team

The salesman who quoted you is not the person who’s going to do the work. That’s normal. What’s not normal is when there’s no foreman, no project manager, no senior person checking what’s being done. Roofing teams supervised by nobody do work that nobody supervised.

“We don’t need to lift the tiles for that”

For most proper roof repairs — leaks especially — you have to lift tiles to do the job correctly. If a contractor is selling you a leak repair that doesn’t involve any tile lifting, you’re getting a sealant job dressed up as a repair.

No paperwork at handover

A finished job should come with a written warranty, an inspection certificate where applicable, photos of the completed work, and copies of any compliance certificates. If the team packs up and drives away with nothing more than a verbal “we’re done,” you’ve got no recourse when something goes wrong.

What good actually looks like

For balance, here’s what you want to see on the other side of all this. A proper contractor will:

• Take the time to actually inspect before quoting
• Put everything in writing with a clear scope and itemised pricing
• Show you their accreditations without being asked
• Take a reasonable deposit, with the bulk paid against milestones or completion
• Be willing to give you references and answer questions about past jobs
• Have a public, verifiable track record
• Issue you a proper warranty in writing

None of this is exotic. It’s just professional. The reason people get burned isn’t that good contractors are rare — it’s that bad contractors have got better at looking acceptable on the surface.

What should you do?

The cost of choosing the wrong contractor is almost never just the cost of redoing the job. It’s the original payment, plus the damage caused by the bad work, plus the cost of a proper repair, plus the months of stress in between.

Slow down. Get three quotes. Ask the awkward questions. Trust your gut when something feels off — it usually is. The contractor who’s annoyed by your due diligence is showing you exactly why you needed to do it.

JBC Roof Cover is a third-generation Johannesburg roofing company with PRAWA and WTASA accreditation. We are one of the only Roofing specialists in Johannesburg that ensures all out staff members have a National Certificate in Roofing and Waterproofing. We’ve spent decades fixing the work other contractors got wrong, and we’re happy to walk any homeowner through what a proper quote and inspection should actually look like — even if you ultimately go with someone else.