DELTONA, Fla. — A woman living on social security said she received a letter from a roofing company demanding payment for a roof that hadn’t been built, and that she couldn’t afford.

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Ana Torres said her husband signed a contract with the roofing company last year, but passed away before the work was done.

Channel 9′s Jeff Deal went to Deltona and looked into the issue and helped her get it resolved.

Torres and her late husband Frank moved into their small Deltona home to escape the cold up north, after working hard their entire lives. They lived together for almost 50 years.

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Two months before he passed away last October, Frank signed a contract with Apex Roofing and Restoration to have their roof replaced.

The insurance check was for a little over $17,000. It was never cashed and the new roof hasn’t been built.

“They keep saying you know you have to do it, you have to pay this kind of money,” Torres said.

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She said she lives month to month on social security. Torres turned to Channel 9 because she couldn’t afford to make up the difference between the check amount and $23,000.

when Channel 9 reached out to Apex, the company’s owner said the letter was a clerical error, and they should have sent a letter requesting a deposit instead.

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He said they had been trying to reach the customer and weren’t aware frank had passed away. The company also noted, Torres might not have to pay the extra amount, and they could go back to the insurance company to request more money... or agree to do the job for less.

Apex sent a statement to Channel 9. Read their full statement below:

We want to thank channel 9 news and reporter Jeff Deal for assisting in connecting us with our valued customer’s wife. Our recent contact attempts had been unsuccessful for months, and sadly, we just learned this was due to our customer passing away. Today, we were able to immediately connect with our customer’s wife and resolve an open clerical mistake and clear up any misunderstanding. We are grateful to all involved and to have been able to bring the matter to a satisfactory and amicable resolution with our customer.

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