On Mar 11, 2:27 am, "Eric9822" wrote:
On Mar 10, 11:22 pm, tenplay wrote:





Back in May of 2006, we had our house in Olympia, Washington, reroofed
by a local roofing company with 40 year composite for around $8k. They
came with good recommendations and seemed to have done a good job on our
roof. About 3 weeks ago, we noticed water dripping through the drywall
just inside the main entrance of the house. We called the roofing
company's number in hopes of arranging a repair of the leaking roof. We
were shocked to get another roofing business, who said that they had
recently bought the business from the roofing company we did business
with. They said that they were not responsible for the work of the
previous roofing business. We then called the cell number we were given
by the original roofing company owner. A child answered and said that
her father was in jail and no longer in the roofing business.
Subsequent calls to the cell number only got an automated message saying
that the cell memory was full and could not take any more messages.

Besides hiring another roofing company to fix the leak, what can we do?
Is there any way to have the repair done by the original roofing
company or at least have them pay for the repair? Can we take him to
small claims court? Should we involve our home insurance company?
Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

Personally I would contact an attorney and take advantage of a free
consultation.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

From a practical standpoint, the first thing I would do is get a
couple of reputable roofers to come over, inspect the roof, tell you
what the problem is and how much it's going to cost to fix it. There
are two extremes of possibilities. One is it's a minor problem
localized to the one area. The other is the whole roof was done
incorrectly.

If it's the former, then I'd just get it fixed, pay for it myself and
forget about it. If it's the latter, then you may want to take the
advice of consulting a lawyer. But I would not put more than a couple
hundred bucks into any legal option. If you decide to go the legal
route, you're going to find the only viable option will be to have it
fixed, then take the new company to small claims. Otherwise the
legal fees will exceed what it's worth; you don't know that you will
win. A lawyer can give you advice as to whether the new company is
liable or not. My understanding is that if they in fact bought the
business, then they are responsible for any warranties that were
given. Did you get one? Is the problem due to a defect covered by
any warranty, or could it be attributed to something else, say a
windstorm, or gutters backing up? The other possibilities are that
only the assets of the business were sold, ie his truck, ladders,
etc. Or that nothing was sold, he just has calls forwarded to his
buddy. In those cases, they are generally not liable. And of course,
trying to figure out and then prove which it is ain't easy either.

And then comes the biggest problem of all. Even if you get a
judgement in small claims court, collecting it is a different
matter. Many of these guys are judgement proof. They have assets
like homes, vehicles, etc in someone elses name and you will have a
very hard time getting them to pay. Lots of times they don't even
show up in court, because they know this.