This Texas woman is fighting for her home, and all she wanted was to replace her roof

In the annals of Texas roofing stories, the ongoing saga of Margie Cooley, 83, of Richardson, illustrates the corrosive power of a regulatory-free environment. In Texas, roofers, home builders and remodelers are not licensed, registered or certified with the state. Aside from expensive court proceedings and small claims court, consumers have next to no protections and in most cases no one to turn to for help. In Cooley’s case, she withheld final payment on her roof job until Bold Roofing finished a proper cleanup, which she claims the company refused to do. Instead, Bold lived up to its name. Cooley says owner Robert Bold came to her house with a lawyer and demanded the $16,000 payment. When she showed him the tire ruts she wanted him to fix along with two broken gates, Bold declined, she said. In turn, she declined to make the payment, holding the insurance check in a savings account until Bold makes the repairs. It is, she told me, her only leverage. Through court procedures, Cooley did lose title to her house.

Bold declined to talk to me. His lawyer Stephen Niermann of Carrollton, told me, “The work was done, but Bold Roofing was never paid. Insurance payments were paid.” That money belongs to Bold, he said, a company in business for 40 years. Court documents help tell this story. Bold sued Cooley. Then Cooley sued Bold. The cases are far from being decided. For Cooley, certain steps and missed steps had to fall into place that cost her ownership – at least on paper – of her house of 38 years. After she lost title, the house was flipped to four investors in two years’ time. First know Cooley is an accountant by trade who likes to keep track, and she knew a crucial fact about the roofing industry. It’s now against state law for a roofer (or a car repair shop) to offer to pay a consumer’s deductible. Her son found the information on the Texas Attorney General’s website. The law is not popular because it costs consumers more and withholds selling points by roofers. (“We’ll cover your deductible,”). Cooley says that when she learned this, she returned the deductible money to Bold. She says she also called the company and canceled their contract. But good luck with a verbal dismissal by phone to cancel a contract. That doesn’t always work in the roofing industry. Cooley said she returned home one day to find Bold’s squad working atop her roof anyway.