Due to a severe storm in Greenville, TX, on June 19, 2019, a huge tree limb crashed onto my mom's…read morehouse, damaging her roof. Her insurance agent gave her Bret Hollon's (Hollon Custom Homes) contact info. Bret came to the house and met with my mom and me. He seemed great. We felt comfortable with him, so he and my mom signed a contract to replace her roof. He said he needed $4,200 up front for materials but agreed to accept the $3k Farmers had advanced her.
The work was to be done on Thurs, 7/11. On Monday, 7/8, I called Bret to make sure all was good to go for my mom. He then told me he was going to need to get paid the remaining $5,700 in full on the day of the job. I told him my mom hadn't received the rest of the insurance, and wouldn't until the work was done, and she would pay him as soon as Farmers issued the check (as is written in Hollon's contract he had my mom sign AND as is the industry norm for the roofing business). He said he couldn't do that, he had to get paid in full that day, and, unbelievably, asked if I could loan her the money. I told him he needed to do the job as agreed or refund my mom her money. He said if he did that he would have to charge her a 25% material restocking fee, which I said was not agreeable. He then called the referring agent and the claims adjuster, who both told him his approach was not normal.
The day the job was supposed to be done, I went to my moms house, knowing there was a good chance there would be issues. Sure enough, about 8:30 am Bret called my cell, chuckling over standing us up and "sticking to his guns." I again told him he needed to come do the job he had contracted to do. He said he had talked to his lawyer and would do the job if my mom would sign an assignment of benefits. We declined, citing the fact that she had already signed his contract (and so had he), and she had already paid him $3k. He said he'd have to talk to his lawyer again and get back to us the following week. All the while, all we wanted was for him to either do the work or refund her money.
Eventually, after talking to the Farmers agent yet again, Bret Hollon agreed to refund my mom's money and walk away, and he finally refunded my mom $2,800 of her $3k (withholding $200 for a 1 sq ft piece of tarp he had put over a small hole in the roof), with Farmers graciously making her whole on the remaining $200.
As an interesting post-script, when we finally found a reliable roofer, the materials Bret Hollon claimed he needed $4,200 for, cost right at $3k.
