A re-roof is one of the largest bills a household meets outside a car or a kitchen, and it usually arrives without notice. No dataset shows how UK homeowners split between savings, borrowing and remortgaging, so any page publishing those percentages has invented them. What can be said usefully is what each route costs, and which single step protects all of them.
Put part of it on a credit card
This is the most valuable line on this page. Under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, where a purchase is financed partly by credit, the card issuer is jointly and severally liable with the trader for misrepresentation or breach of contract. The claim covers the whole cash price of the job, not the portion that went on the card.
The two thresholds attach to the price of the work, not to the payment. Section 75(3)(b) excludes a claim only where the supplier has attached a cash price of £100 or less, or more than £30,000, to the item. There is no minimum card payment anywhere in the section. So a £50 deposit paid by credit card on a £12,000 re-roof brings the entire £12,000 within reach of a claim against the card company, because it is the £12,000 that has to sit inside the band. The Financial Ombudsman states it directly: it is the cash price of the goods or services that matters, not what you paid on your credit card, and section 75 applies even if you only made part of the payment using credit.
That distinction is worth holding onto, because roofers vary in what they will put through a card and some will take only a small amount on one. A roofer who accepts £100 of a £12,000 job on plastic and wants the rest by transfer has given you the full protection anyway. The step to insist on is that some of the money moves by credit card, not that a particular sum does.
Section 75 matters most in the situation people assume defeats it. If the roofer has gone out of business, the issuer remains liable anyway and recovers from the trader itself. That is not your problem to solve.
Section 75 is not chargeback
Chargeback is a card scheme rule rather than law. Your bank does not have to raise one, the window is commonly around 120 days, and if it declines there is nothing to enforce. Section 75 is a statutory claim, sits on the ordinary six-year contract limitation period, and applies to credit cards rather than debit cards. On a job this size that is the difference between a right and a favour, which is the argument for paying the deposit by credit card even if the balance goes by transfer.
Pay the roofer's business directly. Routing money through a third-party payment processor can break the debtor-creditor-supplier chain that section 75 depends on. If a claim is refused, complain to the card issuer first, which has eight weeks to respond, then take it free to the Financial Ombudsman within six months of the final response.
What the borrowing routes cost
Savings cost nothing and protect nothing, which is the argument for putting the deposit on a card regardless and clearing it immediately.
Personal loans are the mainstream route. The Bank of England's effective rate on new personal loans was around 9.09% in March 2026. Advertised best buys for £7,500 to £25,000 sat at roughly 5.8% to 7.4% APR, home improvement loans of £7,500 to £15,000 averaged 13.4% APR, and weaker credit files were quoted up to 29.9% to 34.9%. The spread is the point: what you are offered follows your file, not the advertisement.
Credit cards carry two published figures that look contradictory and are not. Around 24.4% is the purchase interest rate; around 36.8% is the APR including fees. They measure different things and both are correct, so make sure any comparison uses the same measure on both sides.
Roofer-arranged finance is regulated credit broking
A roofer introducing you to a lender is carrying on the regulated activity of credit broking. The firm must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority or be an appointed representative of an authorised firm, and most roofers who do this hold limited permission credit broking. Search the exact company name on the quote at register.fca.org.uk before signing anything.
These arrangements are often interest-free for 12 to 24 months, which can be the cheapest money on the table. Ask who the lender is, what the total repayable is, and what the cancellation terms are. A firm that cannot answer those is not one to take credit from.
A low rate over 25 years is not a low cost
Adding the roof to the mortgage feels like the cheapest option and frequently is not. A £12,000 roof spread across a 25-year term accrues far more total interest than the same £12,000 over five years at a higher headline rate, because the rate is only half the calculation and the term is the other half.
Ask any lender or broker for the total amount repayable rather than the monthly figure. The £12,000 above is a plausible South London terrace re-roof including VAT, so it is the sort of sum where the difference between the two ways of quoting it runs into thousands.
Arranging the money is the easier half of this.