This is the roof half of a diligence document request. Send it once, in writing, with a response date, at the start of the diligence period rather than at the point you discover something.
Each row says what to ask for, what the document proves, and what it means if it does not arrive.
The roof itself
| Ask for | What it proves | If it does not arrive |
|---|---|---|
| Installation date | When the clock started | Age becomes an estimate, and so does remaining life |
| Original specification | System, insulation, deck, attachment | The build up has to be established on site, often by a core |
| As built roof plan | Areas, levels, outlets, equipment positions | Findings cannot be located consistently between visits |
| Manufacturer approval letter | That the installation was accepted | The warranty may never have been validated |
| Completion or sign off certificate | That the work was finished and inspected | Nobody confirmed the roof was finished to specification |
The history
| Ask for | What it proves | If it does not arrive |
|---|---|---|
| Repair invoices, five years | Frequency, location, recurrence | The repair pattern is unknown and has to be read off the roof |
| Maintenance contract and visit reports | Somebody has been on the roof | Assume no maintenance, and check the warranty conditions |
| Previous inspection reports | Earlier findings and whether they were acted on | No baseline exists to compare today’s condition against |
| Moisture survey results | Whether wet insulation was ever recorded | Wet build up remains an unknown unless surveyed now |
| Insurance claim history | Storm events and what was paid | Past damage and past repairs cannot be separated |
The paperwork
| Ask for | What it proves | If it does not arrive |
|---|---|---|
| Warranty certificate | What cover exists and from whom | Treat the roof as uncovered in the model |
| Warranty terms and conditions | What voids it and what transfer requires | Cover cannot be valued, only assumed |
| Permits for roof work | That past work was permitted | Unpermitted work becomes the buyer’s problem |
| Lien waivers for recent work | That contractors were paid | An unpaid contractor can follow the building |
| Roof related correspondence | Disputes, complaints, unresolved issues | A live dispute can arrive after closing |
The agreements
| Ask for | What it proves | If it does not arrive |
|---|---|---|
| Leases covering roof repair and access | Who pays and who controls access | Recharge assumptions in the model are unsupported |
| Telecoms or antenna agreements | Rights over the roof and its penetrations | Equipment rights are unknown until somebody asserts them |
| Solar agreements or leases | Who owns, who maintains, who removes | Removal and reinstatement costs sit with an unknown party |
| Signage and screen agreements | Fixings, loads and maintenance duties | Fixings through the membrane have no responsible owner |
| Service agreements for rooftop plant | Who goes on the roof and how often | Unlogged access is the commonest cause of unexplained damage |
What to do with it
- Send it once, dated, in writing. One complete request outperforms a series of small ones.
- Log what arrives against what was asked. The gap is the finding.
- Read the warranty conditions, not the certificate. The conditions are where the cover actually lives.
- Mark every invoice on the roof plan. A pattern on a plan beats a column of totals.
- Write the absences into the report in plain words. Not documented is a sentence somebody needs to read before signing.
Want the reasoning behind these requests? Read the deal stages and how the roof enters the capital plan.
Walked by Date Roof
Common questions
What does a missing document actually tell you?
That the roof has not been managed, which is a finding in its own right rather than an administrative inconvenience. The absence is evidence, it belongs in the report in those words, and it should change the model rather than being quietly worked around.
- No maintenance records usually means no maintenance
- No warranty certificate usually means no transferable warranty
- Invoices without a scope hide what was actually done
- A missing permit raises a question about the work, not only the file
Sellers lose documents honestly and often, so the point is not to allege anything. The point is to stop an undocumented roof being modeled as a documented one. Write what was requested, what arrived and what did not, and let the capital plan carry the difference as a named unknown rather than an optimistic assumption. A roof with no paperwork is not necessarily a bad roof, but it is an unproven one, and the model should say so.
Who should the request go to?
To the seller in writing, through the channel the purchase agreement names, with a date for the response and a single complete list rather than a drip of small questions arriving over several weeks and each needing to be chased separately.
- A verbal request produces a verbal answer nobody can rely on
- Name a response date so a slow answer is visible early
- Copy your own file, so the record is yours and not the broker's
- Ask once, completely, rather than in a series of small questions
A single, complete, dated request is the document that proves later what you asked for and when. It also tends to arrive faster, because it goes to one person once rather than arriving as a series of interruptions, each of which needs the same person to stop what they are doing and go looking again. A list that arrives once also gives the seller something to work through rather than something to react to.
How far back should invoices go?
Five years is the usual window and it is normally enough to show a pattern. Ten years is better where the roof is older than fifteen, because the useful signal is the trend in spending rather than the total, and a short window can hide a turning point.
- One repair in five years and one every winter are different roofs
- Repairs clustered in one area point at a detail rather than wear
- Rising spend is the signal, not the total
- An invoice with no scope is a receipt, not a record
Read the invoices in date order and mark each one on the roof plan as you go. The pattern on the plan usually tells you more in two minutes than the totals tell you at all, because a roof that keeps failing in the same place has a design or detail problem that no amount of further patching will end.
Does a warranty certificate mean the roof is covered?
Only once you have read what it covers and what voids it, because many are considerably narrower than the word warranty suggests. The certificate is one page of reassurance; the conditions attached to it are where the actual cover lives or does not.
- Material only cover pays for material and not for labor
- Most warranties void where unauthorized work has been done
- Nearly all require maintenance that somebody must be able to evidence
- Transfer commonly needs consent, a fee and an inspection
Ask for the warranty conditions rather than only the certificate, and read them against the maintenance records you were sent. A roof with no maintenance history and a warranty requiring annual inspection is a roof whose cover has probably already lapsed, and that is worth knowing before the figure reaches the model. Ask the manufacturer directly where the terms are unclear, because their answer is the only one that counts.
What about rooftop equipment agreements?
Request them alongside the roof documents, because telecoms, solar and signage agreements can constrain how and when you repair your own roof. They are frequently held somewhere other than the property file, which is why they have to be asked for by name rather than left to a general list.
- Equipment may be fixed through the membrane under an old agreement
- Access rights can limit when work on the roof is allowed
- Removal and reinstatement costs sit with somebody, and it is worth knowing who
- An agreement that does not assign may need renegotiating on day one
Rooftop agreements often sit with the asset manager or the original developer rather than in the building file. Ask for them by name rather than relying on a general document list, because what is not specifically named is usually not sent, and an unnamed agreement tends to surface on the day you first need to open the roof.