Wouldn’t life be wonderful if Uncle Sam subsidized your Central Florida home’s roof replacement? Wouldn’t your day be brighter if you could get a roof replacement now but pay it off later? Well, we have some good news and bad news for you. First, the bad news.
Deductible?
Replacing a roof qualifies as a Capital Improvement under the Internal Revenue Service regulations. Need a nap? Pull up IRS Publication 523! You’ll be asleep in no time, or you’ll find this nugget:
- Improvements add to the value of your home, prolong its useful life, or adapt it to new uses. You add the cost of additions and improvements to the basis of your property.
Right under that statement is a lovely chart listing a new roof among improvements (alongside new siding, a satellite dish, and storm windows and doors). A Capital Improvement is not a tax deduction. You can only financially benefit from it when you sell your home.
You can use the cost of the Capital Improvement to offset capital gains (the sale of your house; your profit). Let’s say you receive $100,000 in profit from selling your house when you downsize; if your roof cost $15,000, you reap $85,000, not $100,000. You have to keep careful records because the sale could be five, 10, or 20 years in the future.
You can deduct some home improvements and repairs as selling costs if you sell the house within 90 days of those repairs (on the logic you had to do the work to make the house sellable). Check out IRS Publication 530 for more about that. (It’s only 16 pages, but we’re guessing you’ll be asleep by page 3!).
If in doubt, save every receipt and invoice. While you are not obligated to keep records past seven years, you can bolster a case for a capital gain offset by having the documents.
Be especially careful in treating a necessary roof replacement as a profit center. We doubt anybody wants to tangle with the IRS. Always consult a tax professional.
Affordable?
Very few Florida homeowners have thousands of dollars languishing in bank accounts. Almost nobody we know of asks how on earth they can find ways to spend money. Of course, a roof is a necessity, but is it affordable?
Roofers are not required to arrange your financing for roof replacement. Any offer a roofer makes is out of a commitment to good customer service. A great roofer will work with you to make the roof affordable.
At Alan’s Roofing, we designed our financing options with you, our budget-conscious customer, in mind. We want your roofing project to go as smoothly as possible, including the expense.
Most financing options allow you to pay for the roof over time. You do not need to start with a huge sack of crumpled bills; generally, no money is needed upfront to get a roof replacement project started.
To start financing your roof, a telephone call to 1-800-309-5667 is all you need with Alan’s Roofing.
Doable?
Suppose your full roof replacement is necessary because of extensive storm damage. Then you have an insurance claim, so you make two calls:
- Call your insurance agency’s 1-800 number anytime, day or night
- Call your local, helpful roofer
You cannot let a storm-damaged roof go unrepaired, or else the damage will spread. You risk mold and mildew with water infiltration. You risk your family’s health. If money is your concern, remember an insurance claim means you pay only your deductible.
That deductible would appear as a difference between the roofer’s charge and the insurance company’s payout directly to the roofer. You would cut a check to your roofer, who may be willing to wait until the end of the job to accept the check.
A full roof replacement covered by insurance is doable and should never depend on your sense of “affordability” or not. If you owe a mortgage, you are obligated to make timely repairs to maintain home value.
Reliable!
When ready to have your Central Florida home’s roof replaced, look for a local, reliable residential roofer. Avoid roofers who refuse to provide written estimates. Stay away from a roofer with no local address or does not provide a Scope of Work for the roof replacement.
You already know the job will be big, financially formidable, and complicated. Why add to your worries by picking an unreliable, unknown roofer? Go with a local pro! At Alan’s Roofing, we’re not tax attorneys or tax accountants. We’re roofers, and we know roofing. We also know to always look out for our customers, including finding ways to afford roofing. Contact us today to learn more about our services, from residential roof repair to complete roof replacement.
