Permits, licensing, and the municipal reality

Missouri does not license roofers

This surprises people, and it should. Missouri has no state roofing licence and no state roofing registry. The legislature has been asked three times to create one. Senate Bill 1022 in 2016, Senate Bill 153 in 2019 and Senate Bill 326 in 2021 each proposed a statewide licensing scheme, and all three failed to become law. SB 326 in particular circulates on contractor blogs as though it passed. It did not.

What Missouri does regulate is conduct. RSMo chapter 407, the Merchandising Practices Act, applies to roofing contractors like any other trade, and section 407.725 adds rules specific to residential roofing after a storm. That is enforcement after the fact rather than screening in advance, and the practical consequence is that the screening is yours to do.

What St. Louis County requires

The county rule is the reference point that most of the metro works from, and it is worth knowing even where it does not directly govern, because municipal codes tend to be written against it.

In unincorporated St. Louis County, a straight like for like asphalt replacement on a slope of 4:12 or steeper does not require a permit. A permit is required if the slope is shallower than 4:12, if more than a quarter of the sheathing is being replaced, or if the roofing material is changing. Each of those three triggers matters more on an older house than on a new one.

• Slope. Porch roofs, dormer cheeks, additions and sun room roofs on houses of this vintage are frequently below 4:12 even when the main planes are steep. One low slope section brings the whole job into permit territory.
• Decking. Nobody knows how much of the deck is bad until the old roof is off. Cross the quarter threshold and the job needs a permit it did not need that morning.
• Material change. Slate or tile to architectural shingle is a material change. So is a change in the low slope system on a flat porch.

Ladue is its own authority

Ladue is an incorporated municipality with its own building department, which means the municipal code governs and the county baseline is context rather than law for your house. Confirm the requirement with the city before the dumpster is delivered, not after. Elsewhere in the county the picture varies genuinely: several municipalities, Ballwin and Kirkwood among them, operate their own contractor licensing rather than deferring to the county, so a contractor who is registered to work in one town may not be registered in the next.

Municipal process on a street of large lots and mature trees also tends to carry practical conditions that have nothing to do with the roof itself: where the dumpster may sit, what hours work may start, protection of the right of way, and whether the drive can take the weight of a loaded delivery truck. On this kind of property the answer to that last one is often no, and a company that has not thought about it will find out with a boom truck in your lawn.

The permit is the contractor's job to pull

Where a permit is required, the contractor pulls it. A homeowner who is asked to pull an owner permit so the crew can start sooner is being asked to take on the liability that a licensed and insured contractor is supposed to carry, and it is one of the clearer warning signs in this trade.

Two related things belong in the same conversation. First, proof of general liability and workers compensation coverage, sent from the insurer or the agent rather than as a photograph of a certificate. Second, the name on the permit should be the name on the contract and the name on the truck. Where those three differ, ask why before work starts rather than after.

More of that in how to vet a roofing contractor, and the paperwork side in what a written scope contains.