After listening to resident after resident describe deposits paid and work never delivered, the Mobile City Council voted unanimously to strip a roofing and window company of its legal right to operate in the city.
The vote on Tuesday, July 21, revoked the business license of All Weather Roofing and Construction, the company at the center of a sprawling criminal investigation that has grown to involve more than 100 Mobile residents who say they paid thousands of dollars in deposits to All Weather Roofing and its sister company, Window Depot, and received nothing in return.
Councilors did not take action against Window Depot because the company does not have a current business license to revoke. Both businesses operated from the same building at 1172 West Interstate Service Road South.
A crisis measured in police reports
The case began drawing attention in late May, when customers of the two companies started telling local reporters strikingly similar stories: large deposits paid for roofs and windows, months of delays, and eventually no work at all. By early July, Mobile police confirmed that more than 100 criminal cases had been filed against the businesses, with customers reporting combined losses approaching $1 million.
The victims described in public hearings include retirees, veterans and working families. Eric Nelson, a retired military veteran who addressed the council the week before the vote, told councilors that customers “paid for goods that were never delivered and work that was never performed.”
“It is painfully clear these businesses participated in an elaborate scheme to deceptively steal hard-earned money from us all,” Nelson said. “There should be swift and stiff penalties.”
Customers described paying tens of thousands of dollars in deposits — one woman told the council during a public hearing the week before that she paid for windows that were never even ordered from the manufacturer. The city estimates roughly 108 people have been victimized by the two businesses, with reported losses between $900,000 and $1 million, and that figure climbs higher when civil claims are counted.
The council’s move
District 6 Councilman Josh Woods championed the council’s response. He said during the body’s pre-meeting work session that legal counsel for All Weather Roofing had contacted the city the week before and offered to surrender the business license. The city had not received that license by Tuesday morning, and Woods argued the council should revoke it anyway.
Other councilors agreed, saying the action would send a message that the council had listened to its constituents and would not tolerate the businesses’ alleged behavior.
“If we go ahead and move forward with our authority to make sure we know it has been revoked, we have truly addressed the needs of our constituents,” District 2 Councilwoman Samantha Ingram said.
City officials described the revocation as an uncharted step — the city’s business licensing power had rarely, if ever, been deployed this way against an ongoing fraud investigation. Woods told reporters after the vote that the council moved as quickly as it could to respond to citizens’ complaints.
“We took the only action we had,” he said.
The criminal investigation continues
Executive Director of Public Safety Curtis Graves said the Mobile Police Department is still investigating and preparing a case file to hand to the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office. He described the scheme as an “unprecedented situation” that warranted action from the City Council, and said investigators are still gathering bank records and other evidence, including subpoenaed records, before the case is presented to prosecutors for potential criminal charges.
The financial unraveling continued after the council’s vote. In early September, Window Depot of the Gulf Coast filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with the filing naming Theresa Fendley as owner and her husband Ward Fendley — the owner of All Weather Roofing — as a codebtor on the company’s debts. The bankruptcy filing lists more than $1.3 million owed, a figure that will compete with the restitution claims of the roughly 100 customers still waiting for roofs and windows they already paid for.
The license revocation is only one lever the city and state have pulled. The Better Business Bureau revoked All Weather Roofing’s accreditation after the company failed to respond to numerous complaints, and the Alabama Home Builder Licensure Board — which lists Theresa Fendley as the designated qualifying representative for All Weather Roofing and Construction — moved to revoke the company’s ability to work statewide the day after the council vote. Both businesses are linked to Ward Fendley and his wife Theresa Fendley, according to Better Business Bureau and Secretary of State filings.
The Window Depot brand’s national corporate office also cut ties with the Mobile franchise in June, saying the locally owned operation was no longer authorized to use the Window Depot name, trademarks or branding.
What homeowners can do
Police have urged anyone who paid All Weather Roofing or Window Depot for work that was never completed — or who paid deposits and never received services — to file a report with Mobile police. Consumers who paid by credit card may also be able to dispute charges with their card issuer, and victims who financed their projects through lenders are encouraged to contact their lenders.
Graves said there is no timetable for completing the criminal investigation, but city officials have pledged to keep victims informed as the case moves toward the district attorney’s office. For the dozens of customers who spoke at public hearings — and the roughly 100 more who filed police reports — Tuesday’s vote was the first concrete action taken on their behalf since the allegations surfaced in late May.
“If we go ahead and move forward with our authority to make sure we know it has been revoked, we have truly addressed the needs of our constituents,” Ingram said.