GUILTY JURY VERDICT

A Parker County jury in Weatherford, Texas found a local realtor, Deborah Moran and her broker/employer, Ready Real Estate, committed Fraud in a Real Estate Transaction.

The jury found that Deborah Moran, the buyer’s agent for Annette & Michael Daniel, had committed Negligence in her duties owed as a licensed Texas Real Estate Agent. They Parker County jury also found that Deborah Moran had committed violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by both failing to disclose information known to her that would have been critical to the purchase process as well as misrepresenting facts about the house. The Parker County jury then found that Deborah Moran had not only committed violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, but that she had done so knowingly.

The case involved a rural piece of property with five acres in Azle, Texas, located on the far eastern edge of Parker County next to the Tarrant County line. According to the Parker County flood plain administrator, Mr. Kirk Fuqua, the house was built illegally and improperly on a platted drainage easement which was created because an unnamed tributary identified on the FEMA flood maps ran through the property. The house was built in 1998 on top of the unnamed tributary. The flood zone designation was exacerbated by the fact that there is no Base Flood Elevation for the house, so no one, including the Parker County Flood Plain Administrator, or FEMA, knows how high water will rise in a 100 year rain event.

At trial, a local Parker County and Weatherford resident, Mr. Doug Burt, said that he had surveyed this property originally for the developer’s engineer as well as in 2003 for the previous homeowner. He testified that Deborah Moran had contacted him at the beginning of the Daniels’ interest in the property and advised Deborah Moran and Ready Real Estate that the house was in a flood plain and located in a drainage easement. Burt then provided Deborah Moran with two surveys, one from 1998 which was created to try and move the house out of the drainage easement, and one in 2003 that showed the house in the drainage easement. He told Deborah Moran at that time that the house had “two strikes” against it or words to that effect.

Deborah Moran then never relayed that information to her buyers, the Daniels. Even more alarming was the fact that she sent the Daniels the 1998 survey with a drainage easement drawn around the house despite the fact that Doug Burt, the surveyor, advised her it had never been recorded – meaning it was useless and clearly misleading. The 2003 survey showed the house on top of the drainage easement.

Despite having a copy of the 2003 survey in her possession, Deborah Moran never provided the survey to her clients, the buyers.

Even more alarming was the discovery by the mortgage company that the house was in a flood zone. The mortgage officer, Susan Moore, advised Deborah Moran, that the house was located in the flood zone. Moran never advised the Daniels the house they were considering purchasing was in the flood zone. Instead, she contacted the sellers’ agents to find out if they had information to refute the finding by the mortgage company. The sellers’ agents then produced a new document that Deborah Moran gave to the mortgage company to persuade them that the house was not in the flood zone. The Daniels, the buyers Deborah Moran represented, never knew about any of the flood zone determinations or attempts to change the flood zone status of the property. They closed on the house and 9 months later, their mortgage company rechecked the property and found the house was in fact in the flood zone.

A licensed real estate appraiser, Mr. Ken Phillips, testified that the house and land was not worth anything and had a zero dollar value because of the flood zone and drainage easement status.

The Texas Real Estate Commission has had two investigators following this case, but to date has never done anything other than request information. Even with a Parker County jury finding Deborah Moran committed statutory real estate fraud, the Texas Real Estate
Commission had done nothing to Deborah Moran or Ready Real Estate.

Deborah Moran is still employed by Ready Real Estate in Parker County, Texas.

Authored by: Evin G. Dugas, Esq.