In October 2006, a homeowner in Hollywood, Florida, paid a roofing company a $500 deposit. The contract, signed following Hurricane Wilma, had the company take her claim to her insurance company and then do the work at whatever price the insurer approved.
That same month, the contractor whose license the company operated under measured her roof. It is the last work the record shows. After that, the state’s contractor board later found, no further work was done for more than 90 consecutive days, without just cause.
The contract called the $500 refundable if the company could not reach a settlement with her insurer. More than four years later, the board ordered the $500 paid back, fined the contractor $10,000 and revoked his license.
What the record says happened
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation filed an administrative complaint, case number 2009-035440, signed January 26, 2010. It named the certified roofing contractor who was the company’s primary qualifying agent, and recited the rule that such an agent is jointly and equally responsible for the business’s field work and finances on each job…