Impac – Savant – Llano Lose in Colorado. Earlier this morning, a state court judge in Colorado granted an appraiser’s motion to dismiss a Llano Financing lawsuit alleging negligence claims. Impac Funding – a subsidiary of Impact Mortgage and corporate affiliate of CashCall Mortgage – allegedly had sold the right to sue that appraiser to Savant LG, which then purportedly assigned the claim out for litigation by Llano Financing. This was the first known case filed by Impac/Savant/Llano in Colorado.
The primary basis for the court’s decision to dismiss the case with prejudice was that Llano Financing and its attorneys showed inexcusable “neglect” in failing to timely file what is referred to in Colorado courts as a “certificate of review.” This is a preliminary document required to be filed in any case in Colorado alleging professional negligence and requires the attorney for the plaintiff to execute a statement that the attorney has consulted with an expert and that the expert has concluded that the filing of the claim “does not lack substantial justification.”
After concluding that Llano’s case should be dismissed for its failure to comply with the procedural requirement, the court went further and expressly concluded that Llano’s “claims are of questionable merit.” In particular, it concluded that Llano’s lawsuit was untimely under Colorado’s applicable two-year statute of limitations period. The court was further skeptical that Llano could legitimately show it possessed the right to sue the appraiser as it alleged in its complaint. The reason for the court’s doubt on this issue was that — amazingly (but alluded to here on Appraiser Law Blog in prior posts) — a different litigation entity tied to the Ganters and Savant named Mutual First had earlier sued the same appraiser over the very same appraisal and Mutual First had claimed to own those rights in the earlier case. (There are other cases in which appraisers have been sued multiple times over the same appraisal by these entities.) Here is what the court said about that issue and why it made the Court question the merit of Llano’s lawsuit:
Impac – Savant – Llano Lose in Illinois. In Illinois last week, one of the first motions to dismiss by an appraiser in that state came to hearing. Impact/Llano have filed more than 50 cases in Illinois. In this first motion to be heard there, the court granted the appraiser’s motion to dismiss the case with prejudice. The basis of the motion was that Llano both lacked standing to sue and was untimely with its lawsuit. More about this important decision will be shared in the near future.
Impac’s Growing Reputation Problem. As of this date, more than 400 cases have been filed by First Mutual Group and Llano in relation to appraisals farmed out for litigation by Impac. As covered in prior posts, these cases have caused financial and emotional harm to hundreds of appraisers. Based on this mass litigation, many appraisers now tell me that they would not knowingly accept new appraisal assignments for Impac Mortgage or its affiliate CashCall Mortgage. And, I tell them frankly, from my point of view: if my own daughter were an appraiser, I wouldn’t want her to work for a lender who makes a business decision to sell the right to sue its appraisers — especially a lender who makes the even more ill-informed decision to sell that right to operators like Savant LG, First Mutual and Llano Financing.
