In a statement released on LinkedIn Tuesday, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) continued to defend itself in the court of public opinion against accusations of racketeering and civil conspiracy alleged by borrowers in a class action lawsuit.
The suit, filed on April 2 in Michigan’s Eastern District Court, was brought in conjunction with an investigative report released by Hunterbrook Media on the same day.
UWM’s latest defense, directed towards its partners, targeted the credibility of the Hunterbrook report, alleging that Rocket “has obvious connections” to the release and that the piece has an author “pretending to be a journalist.” UWM also pledged to cover any of its partners’ attorney fees, if they were to “get roped into their frivolous lawsuit.”
The statement claims that one of the authors worked at a Rocket Mortgage-affiliated broker for the last five years, leaving only two months ago. This was UWM’s second statement alleging connections between Rocket, Hunterbrook’s expose and the class action lawsuit.
Matthew Termine, one of the authors, served at the fintech mortgage brokerage Morty from 2019 to 2024, initially holding the position of corporate counsel before advancing to the role of vice president of legal, regulatory, and compliance. He departed Morty in February 2024. Morty, which operates as a broker marketplace, is not an affiliate of Rocket. Per its website, Morty "supports a broad range of transactions and provides centralized access to 25+ lender partners."
When contacted, UWM could not provide any proof of its allegations.
Termine, who graduated from Fordham University School of Law with a J.D., has a legal background. Hunterbrook included that Termine was “the lawyer who exposed the Paul Manafort scandal and whose prior reporting led to multiple criminal convictions.”
Hunterbrook responded to NMP about Termine’s involvement, stating “Termine didn't work for Rocket. He worked for an independent mortgage broker that actually shopped between options. But it sounds like, in UWM's telling, all brokers are just fronts for lender partners.”
Both the article and the lawsuit claim UWM conspired with brokers to steer homebuyers into costly mortgages that resulted in borrowers paying billions of dollars in excessive fees. The article alleges that in 2023, over 8,600 loan officers at independent brokerages directed more than 99% of their mortgages to UWM, marking a substantial increase from 2020, where the number of partners sending 99% of their loans to the lender was merely half of the current figure.
In its LinkedIn statement, UWM asserts that in 2023, it generated $97.6 billion in 30-year fixed-rate mortgages an average rate of 6.51% compared to an industry-wide average of 6.81% for loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Hunterbrook’s piece claims that borrowers incurred $229 million more in closing costs over the past four years on UWM loans compared to the average-priced loan.
After the article and class action suit were made public, UWM CEO Mat Ishbia responded, claiming that its biggest competitor, Rocket Mortgage, was behind the attack. The company also released a statement that called the lawsuit “a sham.”
On April 4, Hunterbrook’s publisher, Sam Koppelman, called out UWM’s defense in a post on X, formerly Twitter, and said that UWM hadn’t managed to point out any false reporting in the piece. He also mentioned that neither Rocket nor Rocket's founder Dan Gilbert even agreed to provide Hunterbrook Media with a comment on the story.
“Rocket Mortgage and Dan Gilbert have no involvement in the deep, detailed 50-page Hunterbrook Media article exposing the business practices of Mat Ishbia and United Wholesale Mortgage,” said an emailed statement from Aaron Emerson, Rocket Mortgage spokesperson. “Dan Gilbert and Rocket Mortgage have no investment, other financial interests or relationship to Hunterbrook Media. The professional investigation speaks for itself and appears to be based on factual, public information uncovered by the journalists who conducted the investigation.”
In its statement, UWM claimed its competitors had habitually been abusing the court system, writing, “Back in 2021, many claimed UWM was doing something wrong with the All-In initiative, asserting that it was against the law, antitrust rules were broken, and brokers shouldn’t work with UWM because of it. The play didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”
UWM's top partners — NEXA Mortgage, C2 Financial, and Edge Home Finance Corporation — did not respond for comment by the time of publication.
Rocket said in a phone call with NMP that their previous statement on the matter still stands.
