u/Kr8ivemamabrain

Warning: This is my “War and Peace” version with very little peace

Looking for input from anyone with construction lien or consumer protection experience in Michigan, or just a sanity check on this timeline.
Background: Storm damage in March 2026, roof replaced in May. Signed a contract with a roofing contractor on April 12. Over the following months the balance the company claimed I owed changed multiple times without ever getting an itemized invoice despite repeatedly asking for one.
Timeline of what I can document:
• March 30 (first inspection/quote) — The original quote double-bills drip edge: two separate line items (“Replace drip edge” $925 + “Drip edge” $850) totaling $1,775 for 500 linear feet — on a roofline that’s actually 248.86 LF per an independent EagleView measurement. That duplicate silently disappears by the next estimate, with no correction or disclosure. Original inspection baseline: $16,100.
• April 4 — two separately-numbered estimate documents same day. My insurer’s own document system shows two distinct “Staff Estimate Final Draft” customer copies issued this date (different document ID numbers). The figures that were actually paid: $20,494.60 RCV / $16,708.98 ACV before deductible / $15,708.98 net after the $1,000 deductible.
• April 12 — contract signed. The price line on the contract itself is left blank — no total dollar figure agreed to in writing at signing; every total since has come solely from the contractor’s own later estimates. The same day, Roof estimate is $18,000 and I’m promised a $2,064.67 credit in writing (“transparency credit”) covering nine specific line items they said they wouldn’t be charging me for. All nine of those same items remained on the books and were paid in the final insurance estimate anyway. By June, that promised credit had been quietly revised down to $461.20 — with no written explanation for the difference.
• May 15 — Roof installed.
• May 23–27 — A supplement estimate is created and submitted to my insurer for $24,493.17 — without my knowledge — introducing new charges (a $505 tarp fee, a $415.13 gable trim item, doubled ice & water barrier) that weren’t in the original quote or my insurer’s own estimate.
• June 11–25 — Nine separate contact attempts to me and/or my insurer, including a rep contacting my adjuster directly. My insurer’s own claim log shows the claim being reassigned or closed on nearly every date this outreach occurred.
• June 16 — I receive, attached to an email from a different rep at the company, what turns out to be an edited version of the same 34-page file (invoices, line items, photos) submitted to my insurer on May 27th — with certain paid line items quietly removed. The document itself carries a recorded edit date/timestamp showing this alteration, not just an inference from comparing two versions side by side. The $2,064.67 promised credit is never reflected in any subsequent accounting.
• Repeated refusal to itemize, despite written requests. On June 16 I sent a written list of 6 specific documentation questions — itemized invoices for two separate insurance submissions, an accounting of the promised $2,064.67 credit, the install date/photos for the disputed tarp charge, the full dated supplement photo set, and receipts for waste/decking calculations.
The response I received didn’t answer any of the 6 questions directly — it simply restated the balance owed, repeated the same “denied by insurance” deduction figures with no backup documentation, and pointed to the contract’s proceeds-assignment clause instead. This is one dated instance of a broader pattern: multiple written requests for an itemized invoice, over several months, none of which were ever fulfilled — only shifting verbal/email balance figures.
• What the email actually claims was paid vs. not paid. A written breakdown lists a $921.61 total as “denied by insurance,” itemized as: a gutter line (-$1,027.72), two siding-related lines (-$196.48), one line (-$49.63), another line (-$97.72), the separate pool payment (-$15,991.02 — which was never part of the roof claim to begin with), one more line (-$170.92), and two further lines (-$473.83).

In his own words, on the question of how the balance is calculated:

“it is important to clarify that the amount due is not based on our internal material costs, supplier invoices, waste calculations, or profit margins. The amount due is based upon the final claim settlement and the insurance proceeds paid for the covered roofing work.” The same thread states their waste calculation was 12% and that they “pay for, supply, and own all unused materials” — offered as the explanation for why no material receipts were provided.

A later email from the same company adds two new payment-term claims not previously mentioned anywhere: a “75-day collection policy” starting the day of installation, and a contract term requiring “final payment within 5 days of receiving the money from your insurance carrier.” Neither of those two specific terms has been located in the actual signed contract.

• Referral fee pulled as leverage. The company also contacted the coworker who originally referred me to them, telling him he would not receive his $250 referral fee — specifically because we were refusing to pay the disputed balance.
• Even the basic check amount didn’t match. On May 13, I was texted a specific dollar figure to expect from the insurance check, payable to the contractor. The check that actually arrived was a different amount than what I’d been told to expect — a real, contemporaneous, written discrepancy over a number that should have been the simplest one in this whole process to get right.
• ACV/RCV totals didn’t reconcile against separately-approved exterior damage. My insurer approved certain exterior items (siding, corner posts, downspouts) as their own distinct damage category, separate from the roof. When I questioned the roof’s ACV/RCV totals, part of my skepticism was that these separately-approved exterior payouts weren’t clearly broken out — they appear to have been blended into or obscured within the roof figures rather than accounted for on their own.
• August 3 — I receive a “Breach of Contract — Notice of Past-Due Balance” letter threatening a lien within 48 hours. The letter is unsigned. The typed balance also appears altered: the original figure reads $6,760.44, struck through, with $5,741.44 written/typed over it.
• August 12–14 — A construction lien is recorded against my home. The lien document itself lists 5/15/26 as both the first and last date of labor/material provided. The lien wasn’t recorded until 8/14/26 — by my count, day 91 after that date. Michigan’s Construction Lien Act generally requires recording within 90 days of last furnishing labor/material.

The corporate structure question: The contract lists a Michigan LLC and its license number. But the actual insurance submissions were handled by an estimator based in Texas, working for a separate Texas parent company that didn’t register to do business in Michigan until after my contract was signed. A local, separate LLC tied to the same manager was also apparently registered at the same address as the Michigan contracting entity for over a year. So there appear to be at least three related-but-distinct business entities involved, and it’s unclear to me which one I actually have a contract with versus which one is trying to enforce a lien.
What I’m trying to understand:

1. Does an unsigned demand letter carry any legal weight, or does it undermine their own claim?
2. By my count, the lien was recorded on day 91 after the last date of labor/material listed on the contractor’s own lien document — does a late-filed lien like this typically just get thrown out as invalid, or can that timing also support a slander-of-title claim, or is that a much higher bar than a simple deadline miss?
3. Has anyone dealt with a contractor operating under multiple related LLC names / a franchise-style multi-state structure — does that ever amount to anything legally, or is it usually just normal corporate structure that doesn’t help a homeowner much?

Here’s my war help me find peace, please

Location: Michigan.

**Timeline:**

Roof work completed / lien lists last day of labor/material: 5/15/26.

Contractor signed the Claim of Lien: 8/12/26.

Lien recorded: 8/14/26 (day 91).

Lien claims contract amount $21,450.09, payments received $15,708.98, and claims $5,741.11 due.

Good faith: The final/supplement check is not cashed. I’m not trying to avoid a legitimate obligation—I’ve asked for an itemized invoice/accounting so the numbers reconcile.

Documentation issues: I’ve requested an itemized invoice multiple times and was refused. I received an unsigned “breach of contract” notice (no itemized invoice attached).

Permit: I contacted the local permitting/inspection office (PCI) and was told no permit is on record for this roof replacement.

**Questions:**

1. What are the immediate steps in Michigan to challenge/limit/remove a construction lien like this?

2. What documents should I request immediately (itemized invoice, sworn statement, lien waivers, proof of last furnishing, etc.)?

3. What deadlines should I calendar now that it’s recorded?

First estimate was $16100 had a double charge for drip edge —-then second issue was I questioned lack of dollar amount on contract and that roofing company gets all acv and rcv—since additional labor, debris removal siding, gutter damage approved is not in roofing company’s wheelhouse—roofing rep sent an email confirming insurance approved non roof damage line items roofing estimate went to 18000 and a credit of 2064 was added. After the roof was completed they submitted 24,500 but were denied charges…. A $500 tarp fee (fist appeared a week after install and passed off as the landscaping tarp when I asked the roofing company)was applied and all the non roof damages approved were absorbed into the roof and the roofing company asked for the final estimate of the insurance company to do backwards math taking a 4700 depreciation plus 12.18 out of pocket. I was refused an invoice four times and was told we pay on what our insurance company approves not on their materials and jobs they do.
They requested the balance due on June 11 and in the first 14 days of refusing invoices threaten to come get the check in a “couple days” sent and personally offensive lien threat email and called my husbands subordinate to tell him the referral fee wouldn’t be paid because we will not pay.
They have now filed a lien but it’s on the. 91st day. FYI— the original claim was damage to our roof and a pool both were initially denied then the roof was approved….13 day later the pool was approved and those funds were in the roof bucket for two minutes before placed in the seperate dwelling bucket so o believe the contract wording and their knowledge of these pool funds is what began the predatory behavior. Then only a month after install I have a popped nail🤦‍♀️
I’ve never used home insurance and I’ve never addressed a roof issue in the past so I had to figure it all out but with numbers that never at any point made any sense.

Hail/wind damage this spring led to a full roof replacement through my homeowner’s insurance, contractor paid via the claim. Job finished a couple months ago, contractor is now demanding an additional balance, and digging into the paperwork I keep finding things that don’t add up. I’m not a contractor or claims adjuster, so I’d genuinely like outside eyes on whether these are normal industry quirks or actual red flags.
A few examples:
1. A separate, unrelated insurance payout briefly got folded into the roof coverage total, then split back out — I have two insurer-generated PDFs, minutes apart, for the same date. In the first, a large payment for something completely separate from the roof (property on my land, not related to storm/roof damage) was folded into the roof’s coverage category, temporarily inflating the roof total. Minutes later, a corrected version split it back into its own category and the roof total dropped back down. That unrelated payment was issued directly to me, not the contractor — and the timing is what makes me suspicious: a new \~$500 “tarp/protection” charge and a couple other net-new line items appear for the first time in the very next supplement batch after this, with no basis in the original quote or earlier estimate, and the contractor’s own published guidelines describe that kind of protection as a standard included service, not an add-on. Feels like it could be “we couldn’t capture that other payment, so let’s find it somewhere else” — but I want to know if I’m reading too much into two documents that happen to be close in time.
2. Material listed as backordered, but billed as installed — the supplier order (dated about a week before install) shows the drip edge material as fully backordered (0 shipped). The billing still charges for new drip edge installation, and one internal contractor note says the existing drip edge was “previously painted” rather than replaced.
3. Supplement photos that don’t match the work billed, and get reused across unrelated line items — several “before/after” photos submitted to support supplement charges are dated weeks before the install even started (pre-work inspection photos, not proof of completed work) — a few even appear to be storm-damage photos from back in March, reused later as “proof” of a repair. On top of that, a couple of specific photos (a deck-corner shot, an aerial street photo) show up multiple times in the packet, cropped and labeled differently each time, attached to different billing line items.
4. Ridge cap price jump — original quote had ridge cap shingles at \~$543. The insurance-approved supplement later billed the same line item at \~$1,250 — about a 130% increase with no explanation for the jump.
5. Contractor’s stated payment logic doesn’t match his refusal to itemize — when pushed on the balance, the contractor told me they get paid based on what insurance approved, not based on actual material costs. But I’ve repeatedly asked (in writing, multiple times) for an itemized invoice or receipts showing what was actually done/spent, and never received one — just a restated dollar total each time, with the contract’s “all proceeds go to contractor” clause cited instead of documentation.
6. Undisclosed subcontractor — install photos show a worker in gear branded with a totally different roofing company’s name — a company never mentioned anywhere in the contract, invoices, or communications.
Contractor is now sending “past due” notices citing contract terms (a 75-day collection window, a “5 days after insurance funds received” payment deadline) that I can’t actually find written into the signed contract.
Genuinely asking: are any of these normal in the industry (e.g., “backordered but painted instead” is standard practice, or photo reuse is common paperwork sloppiness), or does this pattern look like something more deliberate? The timing between #1’s two documents is what really bugs me — am I connecting dots that aren’t actually connected? What would you flag first if you were in my position?

Hail/wind damage this spring led to a full roof replacement through my homeowner’s insurance, contractor paid via the claim. Job finished a couple months ago, contractor is now demanding an additional balance, and digging into the paperwork I keep finding things that don’t add up. I’m not a contractor or claims adjuster, so I’d genuinely like outside eyes on whether these are normal industry quirks or actual red flags.
A few examples:
1. A separate, unrelated insurance payout briefly got folded into the roof coverage total, then split back out — I have two insurer-generated PDFs, minutes apart, for the same date. In the first, a large payment for something completely separate from the roof (property on my land, not related to storm/roof damage) was folded into the roof’s coverage category, temporarily inflating the roof total. Minutes later, a corrected version split it back into its own category and the roof total dropped back down. That unrelated payment was issued directly to me, not the contractor — and the timing is what makes me suspicious: a new ~$500 “tarp/protection” charge and a couple other net-new line items appear for the first time in the very next supplement batch after this, with no basis in the original quote or earlier estimate, and the contractor’s own published guidelines describe that kind of protection as a standard included service, not an add-on. Feels like it could be “we couldn’t capture that other payment, so let’s find it somewhere else” — but I want to know if I’m reading too much into two documents that happen to be close in time.
2. Material listed as backordered, but billed as installed — the supplier order (dated about a week before install) shows the drip edge material as fully backordered (0 shipped). The billing still charges for new drip edge installation, and one internal contractor note says the existing drip edge was “previously painted” rather than replaced.
3. Supplement photos that don’t match the work billed, and get reused across unrelated line items — several “before/after” photos submitted to support supplement charges are dated weeks before the install even started (pre-work inspection photos, not proof of completed work) — a few even appear to be storm-damage photos from back in March, reused later as “proof” of a repair. On top of that, a couple of specific photos (a deck-corner shot, an aerial street photo) show up multiple times in the packet, cropped and labeled differently each time, attached to different billing line items.
4. Ridge cap price jump — original quote had ridge cap shingles at ~$543. The insurance-approved supplement later billed the same line item at ~$1,250 — about a 130% increase with no explanation for the jump.
5. Contractor’s stated payment logic doesn’t match his refusal to itemize — when pushed on the balance, the contractor told me they get paid based on what insurance approved, not based on actual material costs. But I’ve repeatedly asked (in writing, multiple times) for an itemized invoice or receipts showing what was actually done/spent, and never received one — just a restated dollar total each time, with the contract’s “all proceeds go to contractor” clause cited instead of documentation.
6. Undisclosed subcontractor — install photos show a worker in gear branded with a totally different roofing company’s name — a company never mentioned anywhere in the contract, invoices, or communications.
Contractor is now sending “past due” notices citing contract terms (a 75-day collection window, a “5 days after insurance funds received” payment deadline) that I can’t actually find written into the signed contract.
Genuinely asking: are any of these normal in the industry (e.g., “backordered but painted instead” is standard practice, or photo reuse is common paperwork sloppiness), or does this pattern look like something more deliberate? The timing between #1’s two documents is what really bugs me — am I connecting dots that aren’t actually connected? What would you flag first if you were in my position?