Next time get the money up front.
Via Daily Mail:
A roofer has been arrested after police said he repossessed the roof of a home over a payment dispute with the owner.
Andrew Jackson Higdon III, age 66, was arrested on Tuesday in West Monroe, Louisiana and charged with criminal damage to property and trespass, both misdemeanors.
In a phone interview with DailyMail.com, Higdon flatly denied all of the allegations, saying that the homeowner had scammed him and that he never did any damage to her roof.
‘That is the most ridiculous hogwash on the face of the earth,’ Higdon said of the claims against him.
Higdon said he installed the roof in question in June of 2016 for Brenda Kelly, who lives on Charmingdale Drive in Monroe. A phone number listed for Kelly was disconnected and she did not immediately return a message through Facebook.
The roofer said he spent about $5,700 out of pocket on the supplies and labor, and the bill for the job was around $7,000.
The homeowner said Higdon had a verbal agreement that she’d pay him for the work once her insurance issued a check, according to an arrest warrant reported by the News Star.
Higdon disputes that, insisting that they had a written agreement. But months went by without payment.
‘Every time I called her, she told me how happy she was with her roof. And I felt like I was on another planet, because she equates compliments and praise with the actual payment for the roof,’ Higdon said.
The homeowner told police that she tried to set up a payment plan with Higdon but he refused.
‘Four months into the collections process, she began to talk about how she wanted to make payments – I’m just a small business man though, I’m not Lowes or Home Depot. I’m not set up to do that,’ Higdon said.
The homeowner claims that the roofer threatened to remove his work from her home if he wasn’t paid in full. He denies he ever made such a threat.
She told police that when she came home on December 22, 2016, just a few days before Christmas, the roof and roofing paper on her home were gone. It is unclear to what extent the roof was damaged.