Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Cass County, MO?

Cass County, Missouri

county

30508 S.W. Outer Road, Harrisonville, MO 64701

Cass County's Building Codes, Zoning & Environmental Health page states the "Cass County Building Codes Department is responsible for administering building codes that are adopted by Cass County, Missouri as the minimum standards of construction for new buildings, alterations, additions, remodeling or repair, and/or change of use for existing buildings in the unincorporated areas of Cass County, Missouri," and notes "building permits are not issued at time of application" because time must be allowed for plan review. The office is reached at 816-380-8134, Monday-Friday 6:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

Cass County Code Chapter 500, Article I, Section 500.010 (Ord. No. 08-06 Section 1, adopted 12-30-2008, effective 2-1-2009) adopts "the International Building Code, 2006 Edition, including Appendix Chapters C, E and H, as published by the International Code Council, Inc.," as the county's Building Code, "for the control of building and structures," with local amendments administered by the county's "Building Codes Department." One local amendment (item 16) revises "IBC Table 1505.1. Minimum Roof Coverings" by deleting footnotes a, b and c from that table. Chapter 500 separately adopts the International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings (Article II), Post Frame Building Standards (Article III), International Mechanical Code (Article IV), National Electrical Code (Article V), International Plumbing Code (Article VI), International Fuel Gas Code (Article VII), and International Fire Code (Article VIII).

Required — Drip edge is required at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs (IRC R905.2.8.5). The jurisdiction adopted the 2006 International Residential Code via the county Building Codes Department's 2006 I-Codes amendment document (eff. 1-1-2010; base adoption Ord. No. 08-06); that instrument, read in full, does not amend R905.2.8.5, so the code's drip-edge requirement stands as enacted local law. About drip edge

Required — Cass County Building Codes Department amendments to the 2006 I-Codes ("Last Updated December 28, 2009," effective 1/1/2010) insert values into IRC Table R301.2(1), Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria, including "Ice Barrier Underlayment ... Yes." The county's amendment document does not separately amend IRC Chapter 9 (Roof Assemblies), so the requirement operates under the standard, unamended 2006 IRC ice-barrier extent provision (membrane extending from the lowest roof edge to not less than 24 inches inside the exterior wall line). About ice & water barrier

Not required — Cass County's "Amendments To the 2006 I-Codes" (Cass County Building Codes Department, "Last Updated December 28, 2009," effective 1-1-2010), which implements Chapter 500, Article II of the Code of Ordinances (the county's 2006 International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings adoption, Ord. No. 08-06, adopted 12-30-2008, eff. 2-1-2009), was read in full (23 pages). Its "2006 International Residential Code" section lists every locally revised IRC section, running from IRC Section R101.1 through IRC Section P2902.5.3; no IRC Chapter 9 (Roof Assemblies, R901 through R908) section is among them, so Chapter 9 stands as adopted, unamended. The document's only roof-covering amendment is under the separately adopted 2006 IBC, not the IRC: it deletes footnotes a, b and c from IBC Table 1505.1, "Minimum Roof Coverings," a fire-classification table, not an impact-resistance provision. No UL 2218, Class 4, or hail-impact requirement appears anywhere in the document, including its Post Frame Building Standards article, whose own roof-covering clause (Section 201.3.5.5) likewise points only to IBC Chapter 15 for fire classification.

Table R301.2(1), Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria, as inserted by the county's "Amendments To the 2006 I-Codes" ("Last Updated December 28, 2009," effective 1-1-2010): Ground Snow Load 20 pounds per square foot; Wind Speed 90 miles per hour; Seismic Design Category A; Weathering Severe; Frost Line Depth 36 inches; Termite Moderate to heavy; Winter Design Temp 6 Degrees Fahrenheit; Ice Barrier Underlayment Yes; Air Freezing Index 927; Annual Air Temperature 55.5 Degrees Fahrenheit. Exposure category, topographic effects, special wind region, and windborne debris zone are not stated as separate entries in this table. (A separate provision of the same amendment document, "Post Frame Building Standards" § 201.3.3.1 "Wind Load," states that pole/post-frame agricultural or residential-accessory buildings "shall be considered to be designed for a 90 mph wind located in an exposure C wind zone" -- this is a distinct, structure-type-specific provision for post-frame buildings, not part of the main residential Table R301.2(1) entry.)

Combined general sales tax rate for unincorporated Cass County is 5.8500% at the base county rate (Missouri DOR jurisdiction code 00000-037-000: 4.225% state + county), per the DOR's statewide Sales/Use Tax Rate Table for July 2026. Two fire protection districts stack on top in unincorporated areas: the Pleasant Hill Fire Protection District and the South Metropolitan Fire Protection District (00000-037-003 and 00000-037-004) each raise the combined rate to 6.3500%. Incorporated cities within Cass County (Belton, Harrisonville, Raymore, the Cass County portion of Kansas City and Lee's Summit, etc.) carry their own separate, higher combined rates layered with additional city and district tax -- this county-only figure applies to unincorporated parcels. Missouri's own Contractors Tax Matrix (DOR Audit Services, Industry Guidance, eff. 10-24-2022, https://dor.mo.gov/taxation/business/documents/Contractors_000.pdf) treats a roofing contractor as the final consumer of materials incorporated into real property: "Contractor sales of tangible personal property where title passed to the customer after installation" is listed Exempt, while "Tangible personal property to be sold as an attachment to real property" is listed Taxable -- meaning the contractor owes sales/use tax on shingles, underlayment, etc. at the point of purchase from the supplier, and does not separately charge the homeowner sales tax on the installed roof or on labor. No jurisdiction in this roster collects a construction use tax at building-permit issuance (the Colorado home-rule pattern does not apply here); the DOR's own Sales/Use Tax page (https://dor.mo.gov/taxation/business/tax-types/sales-use/) describes local use tax as a self-reported obligation -- "Use tax is imposed directly upon the person that stores, uses, or consumes tangible personal property in Missouri," with "a purchaser ... required to file a use tax return if the cumulative purchases subject to use tax exceed two thousand dollars in a calendar year" -- not a sum collected at the permit counter.