Minnesota gives you a warranty the contract cannot take away.

What warranty does Minnesota law give me on a re-roof?

One year, against defects caused by faulty workmanship or defective materials due to noncompliance with building standards. It is in the statute as a catch-all: paragraph (a) covers home improvement work involving major structural changes or additions, paragraph (b) covers plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling installation, and paragraph (c) covers everything else.

A standard re-roof or re-side is not a major structural change, so it lands in paragraph (c) — which still carries the one-year statutory warranty. That is worth knowing, because the common claim that statutory warranties only apply to new construction is wrong.

Note what it is tied to: noncompliance with building standards, meaning the State Building Code in effect at the time of the work. That is why the code-driven line items on a quote matter beyond the inspection — the ice barrier running its required distance, the wind rating, the flashing details are the standard your statutory warranty is measured against.

Minn. Stat. § 327A.02, subd. 3(c): “In a sale or in a contract for the sale of any home improvement work not covered by paragraph (a) or (b), the home improvement contractor shall warrant to the owner that, during the one-year period from and after the warranty date, the home improvement shall be free from defects caused by faulty workmanship or defective materials due to noncompliance with building standards.” Source: Minn. Stat. § 327A.02

The contractor who did my roof closed the company. Am I out of luck?

Not on the statutory warranty. The legislature addressed this directly, and the provision exists because the problem is common enough to need naming: the statutory warranties are not affected by the dissolution of a vendor or home improvement contractor that is a corporation or limited liability company.

That is a meaningful protection against the storm-chasing pattern — a company that forms, works a storm, and dissolves before anybody discovers the flashing was wrong.

It is not a magic wand. Collecting from a dissolved entity is harder than collecting from a going concern, and the statutory period is one year for workmanship. But the obligation does not evaporate because the letterhead did, and that is worth knowing before you accept “that company is gone, nothing can be done.”

Minn. Stat. § 327A.02, subd. 2a: “The statutory warranties provided in this section are not affected by the dissolution of a vendor or home improvement contractor that is a corporation or limited liability company.” Source: Minn. Stat. § 327A.02

What is the difference between a manufacturer warranty and a workmanship warranty?

They cover different failures and they are honoured by different people, and almost every warranty dispute on a roof comes down to which bucket the problem falls in.

A manufacturer warranty covers the shingle itself — granule loss, premature cracking, a manufacturing defect. It comes from the shingle company, it typically runs for decades, and it is usually prorated, so its value falls as the roof ages. It does not cover installation.

A workmanship warranty covers how the roof was put on — flashing, fastening, the ice barrier, the details. It comes from the contractor, it runs for whatever the contract says, and it is worth precisely as much as the company's continued existence and willingness to come back.

The practical point: most leaks are installation, not material. So the warranty that matters most in the first years is the one backed by the contractor, which is the one with the weakest guarantee behind it.

What should I check in a workmanship warranty before I sign?

How long, in writing. “Lifetime” means nothing without a definition. Whose lifetime, and transferable to a buyer or not?

What voids it. Common exclusions are reasonable — storm damage, other trades working on the roof, ice dam damage. Watch for ones that swallow the warranty, such as excluding anything related to ventilation or attic condition, which covers a great many real failures.

Who honours it. If it is a manufacturer-backed extended workmanship warranty, it may survive the contractor; a plain contractor warranty does not. Ask which it is.

What triggers it. Some require registration within a window after completion, and some require the permit and final inspection to have been completed — one more reason an unpermitted job is a bad trade.

Does the statutory warranty mean I do not need a contract warranty?

No. The statutory warranty is a floor, not a ceiling, and one year is a short window for an installation problem to show itself. A flashing detail that is wrong can take two or three freeze-thaw cycles to produce a visible stain on a ceiling.

Treat them as layers. The statute gives you a baseline nobody can contract away and that survives the company folding. The contract warranty is what you negotiate on top of it. The manufacturer warranty covers the material for the long haul.

And the thing that makes all three easier to use: documentation. The permit, the final inspection, the itemised scope, dated photographs of the work in progress. A warranty claim is an argument about what was installed, and that argument is won on paper.