Woman says Quicken Loans committed negligence, misrepresentation

WHEELING - A woman is suing Quicken Loans Inc. after she claims a notary was hired to perform her loan closing and her residence was not even appraised for the refinancing of the loan.

Title Source Inc., which is doing business as Title Source Inc. of West Virginia Incorporated, and Delmar Barrett were also named as defendants in the suit.

On June 15, 2011, Stephanie Kemper refinanced her existing mortgage loan through Quicken, who was working in conjunction with Title Source, and hired Barrett, a West Virginia notary, to close the loan, according to a complaint filed July 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Wheeling.

Kemper claims despite the fact that Barrett is not licensed to practice law in West Virginia and was not directly supervised by a West Virginia-licensed lawyer, Barrett reported that he had performed more than 8,000 closings.

On Kemper's closing documents, there was a $575 closing fee, far in excess of the $2 maximum fee for notarial services under West Virginia law and more in line with a typical attorneys' fee for loan-closings, according to the suit.

Kemper claims because Barrett is not a licensed lawyer, she did not get the benefit of her bargain, as she did not have access to or receive the legal services available through a lawyer-closed loan transaction.

During the loan origination process and before the closing, Quicken represented to Kemper that her home would be appraised in order to determine that there was sufficient collateral to make the loan and represented in her closing packet that her home was appraised for $180,000, according to the suit.

Kemper claims she recently learned that Quicken did not even obtain an appraisal of her property and her home did not have a fair market value of $180,000 and would not appraise for an amount equal to or greater than that amount at the time of closing.

Quicken misrepresented both the existence of an appraisal and the fair market value of the property to Kemper and she materially and justifiably relied on those representations, according to the suit.

Kemper claims the representations gave her a false sense of security in accepting that loan that now made her solely responsible for repayment obligation, in contract to the loan that she had refinanced, for which she was jointly responsible to pay.

Kemper is seeking civil penalties and actual damages with pre- and post-judgment interest. She is being represented by James G. Bordas and Jason E. Causey of Bordas & Bordas PLLC and John W. Barrett and Jonathan R. Marshall of Bailey & Glasser LLP.

The case has been assigned to District Judge John Preston Bailey.

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Wheeling case number: 5:13-cv-00091