Voice West - Western States Roofing Contractors Association

TEXAS NEWS
Texas Bills Target Crooked Roofers
After Dallas Area's Hail Horror
Stories
Courtesy of: The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN — Several weeks after signing a
contract to get her roof replaced for $25,000
last summer, Mary Jane Pierson of Fort Worth
started to worry she was getting scammed.
Her repeated phone calls to the roofing
contractor weren’t returned or she was offered
a litany of excuses about why the job wasn’t
getting done: the company’s office flooded,
the owner’s wife was in the hospital, shipment
of the shingles had been delayed.
“I knew there was a serious problem,” she
said, recalling the change in behavior of the
roofer, whose initial friendly demeanor before
he secured the contract — and a check for
$14,000 — was gone.
Pierson, whose $200,000 brick home is still
waiting for a new roof, said the contractor
originally came knocking on her door — as
did several others — last spring after a massive
hailstorm in North Texas. He was very helpful
and offered to get her insurance claim moving
— so she agreed to sign a contract.
“Everything looked on the up and up. So I
gave him the first check from the insurance
company for $14,000. I now know I shouldn’t
have done that,” she said.
Pierson plans to tell her story later this month
in Austin when lawmakers consider bills that
would impose new state requirements on
roofing contractors for the first time. Currently,
roofers are not required to be licensed or
registered by the state.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, is sponsoring one
measure aimed at protecting homeowners
from dishonest roofers and roofing companies
through state licensing of those businesses. A
backup proposal by Carona calls for registration
and oversight of roofers by the Texas
Department of Insurance.
“I’m generally not in favor of a large amount
of licensing of any of the occupations, but
where roofing is concerned there is such a
long history of abuse of consumers, particularly
during periods after storms or natural
disasters,” he said.
“Texas needs to put some safeguards in place
to ensure that the people who provide new
roofs are financially sound, meet the appropriate
building codes and honor their warranties.”
Some in the roofing industry, especially
smaller outfits, have complained that the proposals
might prevent contractors from starting
their businesses and increase costs to consumers.
Others have praised legislators for trying
to help to weed out abusers who’ve preyed on
homeowners.
Roofers After a Storm
Carona said his office regularly hears from
constituents who have lost several thousands
of dollars in scams by unregulated roofers.
Karen Fox, executive director of the North
Texas Roofing Contractors Association, said
the pattern of fraud is similar in a majority of
cases.
“Within 12 hours of a storm, an area can
be blanketed with roofers, many from other
states. After making contact with the homeowner
and offering a lower price, they ask for
a down payment and say they will come back
after buying the shingles. Then, they never
come back,” she said.
“Homeowners get taken advantage of all the
time. It’s a big problem in North Texas.”
Mike Crosby of Crosby Roofing in Dallas
agreed the problem is widespread.
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run
into who had to pay for a new roof out of their
pocket after a roofer took their money and
disappeared,” he said.
A major reason homeowners in the Dallas-
Fort Worth area are targeted is that they live
in what many consider to be the hail capital
of the nation. Just last year, more than 40,000
homes and businesses were damaged by two
massive storm systems that struck the area,
requiring roof replacements totaling hundreds
of millions of dollars.
“Unlike plumbers, electricians or even barbers,
anyone can place a sign on their truck
calling themselves a roofing contractor,” said
Mark Hanna of the Insurance Council of
Texas. “The result can be shoddy work, no
work or outright insurance fraud.”
Those practices, which have become more
commonplace, have made many homeowners
leery of dealing with roofing companies — a
situation that Hanna says points to the need
for regulation of roofers.
He cited a council survey of registered voters
last November, which indicated that more
than four out of five Texans want roofing contractors
to be licensed by the state.
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