Union Home Mortgage is suing nine of its former employees for breaching a number of agreements, including a non-compete contract.
The litigation, filed in an Ohio federal court, comes after eight managers and one loan officer, based on the East Coast, transitioned to American Pacific Mortgage.
All of the employees were bound by non-compete clauses that prevented them from working for competitors for a period of time. Non-competes are used by some mortgage lenders to prevent top producing branch managers and producers from jumping ship.
The move of the nine employees was allegedly kicked off when Craig Franczak, the regional manager at Union Home, resigned and transitioned to APM in January 2025. Franczak was bound by a two year non-solicitation clause, litigation shows.
Following Fanczak’s move, eight of his former employees followed to his new place of employment.Union Home is concerned that the transition of its employees to a competitor will result in the disclosure of its “confidential, proprietary, or trade secret information.”
The retail mortgage lender also wants sign-on bonuses back. Some of its former employees, including Robert Webb, former branch manager, and Bobby Liu, former team lead, received sign-on bonuses that had clawback clauses.
In order to receive the bonus and not have to pay parts back, the associates had to stay at UHM for two years. However, the Ohio-based lender claims that most of the originators did not do so. All-in-all, UHM claims that members of the group owe it over $100,000.
Union Home Mortgage did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Ohio-based mortgage company, like a handful of other mortgage shops, have looked to grab market share during a time of consolidation and lower origination volume. Most recently, it announced the acquisition of Houston-based Nations Reliable Lending, adding a billion-dollar origination business to its larger operations.
And while growing, Union Home has also been litigious in trying to protect its investments in personnel.In late 2023, Union Home sued Go Mortgage and EMM Loans for getting access to its trade secrets via the transition of former employees.Interestingly, in the suit filed Feb. 17 against nine of its former employees, the new employer, American Pacific Mortgage, is not listed as a defendant.
UHM was founded in 1970 and operates consumer-direct, retail and wholesale businesses in addition to servicing its own loans. It has 886 sponsored MLOs, according to public records, and is among the nation’s largest independent mortgage bank lenders.
