Gloucester Township Roofing has spent more than 20 years on roofs, and roofing in Nether Providence often starts with a question that has nothing to do with shingles. Before anyone climbs a ladder at an attached home, we want to know who actually answers for the roof overhead. On a townhouse that belongs to a condominium, the honest answer may not be the person who called us.

On a detached house the owner holds the whole roof, top to bottom. In a condominium community the same roof can be split between an association and the people living under it, sometimes layer by layer. Sorting that out first keeps an owner from paying for work someone else is bound to do, or from ordering work they had no right to order.

Whatever the documents decide, the way we work does not change. A leak is traced from inside the attic as well as from the roof surface, so we price the place the water truly enters. You hear plainly whether a repair will hold before replacement is ever mentioned, and every proposal arrives in writing.

Wallingford’s Condominium Townhouse Communities

A rotted rafter tail sistered on one unit of a Wallingford townhouse row in Nether Providence Township.

Nether Providence Township sits in Delaware County, and many residents simply call it Wallingford, after its largest community, because the Wallingford postal code covers most of the township. Garden City, South Media and Moylan share its 4.72 square miles. Most of the housing here is detached, but a meaningful slice of it is attached, and that slice is where roof ownership gets complicated.

The Census Bureau’s 2024 five-year American Community Survey counts 862 one-unit attached homes in Nether Providence, and 645 of them are lived in by their owners. That is a small number beside the township’s 3,797 detached houses. It still adds up to several hundred households whose first roofing step is reading a document rather than looking at the shingles.

Several condominium townhouse communities sit in Wallingford. Search results name Putnam Village on Putnam Boulevard, Avondale Springs at Wallingford with townhouses on Niblick Lane, and Crum Creek Valley Condominiums. We have read the roof responsibility chart of only one of these, Putnam Village, so it is the only one this page describes, and nothing here speaks for the others.

Why a condo roof is a shared question

A listing page for the 124-unit community on Putnam Boulevard describes owners taking title to the airspace of their home plus a percentage interest in the common elements, with the association maintaining building exteriors. In plain terms, the walls and roof around your rooms may not be yours alone. They may be part of something every owner holds together and pays for together.

That changes what a leak means. A stain over one bedroom may trace back to a shingle field running across several attached homes, and the decision to repair it belongs to whoever the community’s documents name. An owner who hires a roofer on their own may be paying for work the association already owes, or touching a roof they do not control.

Looking for roofing closer to Mount Holly? See Roofing Services in Mount Holly.

Who Answers for the Roof at Putnam Village

Putnam Village consists of 124 two- and three-bedroom townhomes on Putnam Boulevard in Wallingford, managed by CAMCO. The association publishes a responsibility chart, updated in October 2018, setting out who maintains each part of the buildings. It is the clearest local example we have found of how a townhouse roof gets divided, which is why we walk through it here row by row.

Shingles, built-up roofing and the plywood beneath

On the chart, roof shingles and built-up roofing, along with the plywood underneath them, sit with the association for repair and replacement, and the owner column reads none. Gutters, downspouts, drain systems, the building exterior, aluminum and wood trim, soffits and mansards are listed as the association’s too. The chart says the association maintains common areas on behalf of all the owners.

For a Putnam Village owner, then, a drip at the ceiling points first to the association and its manager rather than to a roofer’s phone number. We would rather say that out loud than sell a repair on a roof the chart places in someone else’s hands. Getting the right party involved early is usually the fastest route to a dry ceiling anyway.

Rafters and beams: the association repairs, the owner pays

The framing row reads differently. For roof rafters and beams, the association contracts the repair if they are found deficient, and the owner will be billed for the cost of that repair. So a problem uncovered in the structure under the shingles can arrive as a bill for the owner, even though the owner never hired anyone to open that roof.

That is worth knowing before any roof work in the building begins, because framing is found only once the covering is open. On the roofs we replace for the people who hire us, rotted decking is photographed and shown to the owner before it comes out, at a per-sheet price fixed in the contract. Under the Putnam Village chart, the rafters behind that decking follow the association’s process.

Chimney flues stay with the owner

The chart also leaves the heater chimney flue, the fireplace chimney flue and hearths with the owner for cleaning, repair and replacement. That produces an odd but real arrangement: the roof around a chimney may be the association’s, while the flue running up through it is yours. Everything inside the defined unit boundaries is listed as the owner’s as well.

The chart rows we have do not single out the flashing where a chimney meets the roof, which is precisely the kind of seam worth settling with the association before anyone touches it. When chimney flashing is ours to replace, we cut in new step flashing and counterflashing rather than smearing caulk over the old metal, because a sealant patch is a short-term answer at a joint that moves.

Reading Your Declaration Before Calling a Roofer

The Putnam Village chart says of itself that it is an informational guideline, and that the Declaration and the Code of Regulations take precedence wherever they differ. We have not read that Declaration, and this page does not describe what it says. The practical point is simple: the chart is a good starting map, and the governing documents are the territory an owner should confirm.

Questions to settle with the association first

Before booking any roofer, a townhouse owner can ask the property manager a few direct questions. Which part of the roof over my home is mine, if any? Who must approve a contractor before work starts on a shared building? If framing turns up deficient, how will I be told, and how is the cost passed along?

Written answers to those questions protect both sides of the arrangement. They also tell us whether we are being asked to look at something the owner controls or something only the association can authorize. If the answer is the association, we will say so plainly and step back, rather than start a job the documents never put in the owner’s hands.

The master policy and the deductible

Putnam Village’s own condo insurance page says the Declaration requires the association to keep a master insurance policy covering the buildings and common areas. Per a community insurer letter dated January 8, 2025, the master-policy deductible owners there were personally responsible for rose from $5,000 to $25,000, and owners were advised to raise their HO-6 coverage.

That figure belongs to Putnam Village and its 2025 letter; other communities set their own terms. We do not advise on master policies or condominium insurance, and that conversation belongs with the association, its manager and your own insurance agent. What we can offer is a clear written description of the roof’s condition when the owner is the one who hired us.

When the work is yours to order

Some jobs land squarely on the owner, whether that is a chimney flue at a townhouse or a whole roof on a single-family house. Then our estimate breaks the job into separate lines for tear-off, decking, underlayment, flashing, ventilation and gutters. Two bids written that way can be laid side by side and compared line against line.

We also start with the smallest fix that will genuinely last. A lifted shingle, a cracked pipe boot or a loose length of drip edge does not call for a new roof, and you will hear that from us directly. Replacement comes up only when repairs have stopped making sense for the age and condition of what is actually up there.

Detached Houses, Where the Roof Is the Owner’s

Away from the condominium communities, the arrangement is simpler. Of 5,227 housing units in Nether Providence, 3,797 are detached houses, and 4,499 of 5,091 occupied homes are owner-occupied, according to the same Census survey. On those houses there is no association chart to consult. The owner decides, the owner pays, and the owner signs the contract.

Paperwork the township publishes

The township publishes a Roofing Permit Application from its building at 214 Sykes Lane. The form asks whether the existing coverings will be removed and allows them to stay only if there are fewer than two layers, in good condition, and not slate, clay or cement tile. It also asks the applicant to confirm an ice barrier from the eave to a point 2 feet inside the exterior wall line, with pictures taken during installation.

The same application calls for double underlayment on slopes of 4:12 or less and roof ventilation at a 1 to 150 ratio. We plan a tear-off around requirements like those from the start, including a self-adhering ice and water barrier along the eaves and a ridge vent balanced with soffit intake, rather than discovering them halfway through the job.

An older housing stock, matched with care

The Census survey counts 1,554 Nether Providence homes, 29.7% of the total, built in the 1950s. On a house of any age we choose shingle colors against the brick, stone or siding actually on it, holding samples up on site. Where a slate or cedar roof needs repair, we look for matching material instead of patching with whatever happens to be on the truck.

A roof carrying solar panels is scheduled with their removal and reinstallation planned ahead, so nothing about the array is a surprise on the day of the job. At the end of every work day the yard, the driveway and the gutters are cleaned, and a magnet is run across the ground for loose roofing nails before the crew leaves your property.