Marty Ummel feels she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom.Vikas Bajaj:What makes Ms. Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault.
Ms. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.
Real estate lawyers and brokers say the case, which goes to trial in North County Superior Court on Monday, is likely to be the first of many in which regretful or resentful buyers seek redress from the agents who found them a home and arranged its purchase.
“When your house appreciates $100,000 in the first six months, you’re not quite as concerned that maybe the valuation was $25,000 or $50,000 off,” said Clifford Horner of the law firm Horner & Singer. “But when your house goes down, you ask: ‘Who might have led me astray here?’ ”
Everyone wants to know who is to blame for the losses paining Wall Street and homeowners.The answer, it seems, is someone else.
A wave of lawsuits is beginning to wash over the troubled mortgage market and the rest of the financial world. Homeowners are suing mortgage lenders. Mortgage lenders are suing Wall Street banks. Wall Street banks are suing loan specialists. And investors are suing everyone.
The legal and regulatory wrangles could dwarf the ones that followed the technology stock bust and the Enron and WorldCom debacles. But the size and complexity of the modern mortgage market will make untangling the latest mess even trickier. Some cases stretch across continents. Others are likely to involve state and federal regulators.
“It will be a multiring circus,” said Joseph A. Grundfest, a professor of law and business and co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford. “This particular species of litigation will be manifest in many different types of lawsuits in many different jurisdictions.”
