Texas sues Berkshire subsidiary

Clayton Homes Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. of Omaha, is the subject of three Texas lawsuits filed last week, alleging fraud and deceptive dealings with buyers of some of the company’s manufactured houses.

The lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Corpus Christi allege that Clayton did not inform buyers of thousands of its houses in Texas that because of a settlement of some earlier lawsuits, their loans had been “released” and were “paid in full.”

While some buyers knew about the settlement, Clayton continued to collect other buyers’ payments, the lawsuits state. They also allege that the company packaged and sold the loans to Fannie Mae for “hundreds of millions of dollars” “without ever disclosing that the collateral used to secure the loans had been released.”

Those bringing the lawsuits were Jesse P. Soto and Santiago Ramirez, who bought a home in San Patricio County, and Juanita Hernandez, Raymundo Dimas and Hercedes Dimas, who bought homes in Jim Wells County.

Also named in the lawsuits are Clayton Homes affiliates Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance Inc. and CMH Homes Inc. The lawsuits did not name Berkshire Hathaway as a defendant but said Berkshire knew or should have known about the transactions.

Contact the writer:

444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com

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