Melissa Hooper drowns in a tidal wave of numbers every time she closes her eyes. Most of th... Homeowners suing developer they

Most of the numbers relate to her home -- taxes, insurance, fluctuating interest rates. Costs that keep climbing, pushing her deeper underwater.

She can't refinance and can't sell because her house isn't worth what she thought it was when she bought it in 2004. There's no equity and no way out but bankruptcy or foreclosure, she fears. She expects the mortgage company will take the small Pasco house her children know as home.

For Hooper and several other first-time home buyers, a housing deal that sounded like a dream has become a nightmare. All of them had been through bankruptcy before they bought, and all trusted Richland-based developer Jeff Norris who said he could help.

Hooper, her Pasco neighbor Gracie Garza and two Kennewick buyers of Norris houses have joined in the suit. All have similar stories, said Michael Davidson, their Pasco lawyer.

Norris was out of town Monday and Tuesday and did not respond to two messages left with his staff, who would not provide a number to contact him.

Kristin Alexander, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, said there are no records of any consumer complaints regarding Norris filed with that office. A search of the Better Business Bureau's online database also turned up no results.

Garza said when she met Norris in 2004, he promised to give her a break on her house price because she'd be the first one to move into his small development on North 37th Court in Pasco. She said he also promised to landscape her front yard and told her she wouldn't have to pay an electric bill for a year.

By the time the deal closed on Aug. 31, 2004, documents show Garza paid $180,000 for a house the Franklin County assessor values at just $129,400.

Court documents allege Norris arranged for Pasco-based appraiser Peter Ives to do the appraisals for all four home purchases included in the suit. The documents claim Ives worked with Norris to falsely appraise the homes above market value so the buyers could get mortgages they weren't qualified for, and to induce Hooper, Garza and the others to buy the homes.

The suit also alleges Norris worked with Jodi Piche, a mortgage loan processor then working for Columbia Western Mortgage LLC. Documents say Piche now is licensed as a mortgage broker for AES Mortgage LLC -- a company Norris owns.

The court documents claim Piche and Norris falsely stated in loan filings that each of the buyers paid a down payment between $25,000 and $35,000.

But Hooper and Garza said they never paid the down payments shown on their closing documents. Hooper doesn't know who, if anyone, paid the $26,750 listed on her paperwork. Garza said Norris paid her $35,000 down payment.

During the closing, Garza said, Norris slipped her a cashier's check for the down payment under the table and she handed it to the closing agent. Garza said she had no idea he was planning to do that and had been told beforehand not to ask any questions.

Garza said she was naive and didn't understand the numbers in front of her, and no one explained them to her. "Something seemed fishy, but I couldn't pinpoint what."

Then she said Norris arrived with a $5,000 promissory note he told her to sign or she'd lose her house. She said he told her it was to pay him for her share of a fence. She said she was too scared of losing her house not to sign.

Garza said she tried to refinance her house, but there's no equity and her credit is ruined. Now she's not working because she's attending school, she's going into default on her Chapter 13 payments and expects to lose the house.

"He just said, 'You need to sign or you will not be able to stay in your house,' " Hooper said. "We didn't want to sign, but he was very insistent. We were scared not to sign it. He was calling every day for two or three weeks."

Hooper said she tried to refinance her house to consolidate the promissory note and some other bills, but she found she didn't have enough equity.

Davidson said Norris' behavior is predatory. "It takes advantage of unsophisticated, low-income people who are anxious to get into housing," he said.

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