Mortgage broker Kara Collins of Yellow Brick Road being sued by CoreLogic

A Central Queensland businesswoman’s allegations that 100s of her company’s documents are missing or destroyed has come under scrutiny as an international data company seeks damages.

Mortgage broker, Kara Collins of Yellow Joka Trust trading as Yellow Brick Road, is being sued by Corelogic which sells licences to access RP Data. FILE IMAGE

A Central Queensland businesswoman’s allegations that 100s of her company‘s documents are missing or destroyed has come under scrutiny as an international data company seeks $265,000 in damages from the woman in a civil claim.

A judge has questioned how this is possible given, it appears, the documents in question are the type the Australian Taxation Office requires company directors keep for seven years.

Mortgage broker, Kara Collins of Yellow Joka Trust trading as Yellow Brick Road, is being sued by CoreLogic which sells licences to access RP Data.

RP Data provides property data, including history of ownership and sales, to real estate agencies in Australia and New Zealand.

According to Rockhampton District Court files, CoreLogic seeks $264,154.99 (excluding GST) in damages from Ms Collins, claiming she breached the terms of contract by supplying RP Data log in details to 48 investor clients.

Corelogic’s barrister Michael De Waard said CoreLogic claims it sold licences to Ms Collins who then on-sold those licences, in breach of the contract between them, to third parties.

Court documents shows CoreLogic claims it provided Ms Collins with a one user package for $108.33 per month, starting on October 6, 2017.

Broker allegedly supplied logins to investor clients

The civil claim stated that about December 12, 2017, the parties agreed to varying the contract, allowing Ms Collins five additional users for an additional $150 per month (plus GST).

A week later, according to Corelogic’s claim, the parties agreed to another variation – supply of an additional 15 users for the same fee as the December 12 figure.

CoreLogic claims the breach of contract by Ms Collins took place between May 2, 2017, and June 2, 2021, where they claim she enabled 48 third parties in Australia to access RP Data, suffering CoreLogic loss and damage of $264, 154.99.

The claim states CoreLogic, on June 7, 2021, demanded the damage amount be paid by the defendant, which Ms Collins did not.

According to her notice to defend the lawsuit, Ms Collins accepted she provided the access to the 48 investor clients and that she received the demand of payment notice, but did not breach the contract between herself and CoreLogic.

She claims in December 2017, she had a conversation with a CoreLogic account manager about the “Christmas special” CoreLogic advertised in an email she received.

Ms Collins claims she asked the manager if she could provide the additional accounts, advertised in the special deal, to her investor clients and the manager told her that was fine and “was the purpose of paying the additional user accounts”.

She claims she took up the offer to add users to the account.

Ms Collins further claims she was emailed by a CoreLogic employee in May of 2018 advertising another promotional offer to add users to the account.

She claims she replied to the email, saying: “It’s so fantastic being able to offer RP Data access to our investing clients, they love us for it”.

Ms Collins claims the employee replied two days later and did not tell she was not permitted to provide the user accounts to investing clients.

She further alleges that during another conversation with an account manager in 2019 where she was asked why she had s0 many user accounts to which she replied they were provided to her investor clients.

Ms Collins claims that employee did not tell her she was not permitted to do so, but did say they would get back to her after looking into it.

She alleges she was told in the call back conversation that ‘everything was fine and there were no worries’.

The missing documents

CoreLogic had an application regarding the lawsuit heard by Judge Jeff Clarke in Rockhampton District Court on June 20.

Mr De Waard told the court the plaintiff had been able to identify 48 unauthorised third parties accessing RP Data from Ms Collins’ user accounts.

“This is one of those unique civil cases where in order for my client to be able to plead and particularise its case, and also to a degree, its damages, it needs to be able to prove who had unauthorised access,” he said.

Judge Clarke said that can only occur by disclosure by Ms Collins.

Corelogic’s application to court was seeking 100s of such documents that Judge Clarke said would “surely be” in Ms Collins’s possession.

The court made an order in May 2022 in relation to disclosure, including the disclosure of invoices.

Mr De Waard said his client is unsatisfied with the disclosure Ms Collins did make in July 2022.

“We say very little has been disclosed,” he said.

Mr De Waard said his client then, to their own great expense, issued 20 non-party disclosure notices.

He explained CoreLogic only had enough information available to issue those notices.

“In issuing the third party notices, what my client discovered was that there was a significant amount of documents that had originated from the defendant that the defendant did not disclose,” Mr De Waard said.

“And that’s what really has brought on this dispute.”

He pointed to the first non-party disclosure and said this showed there were invoices that were issued by Ms Collins which she did not provide in her disclosure.

‘Defendant not in habit of keeping records’

“Now the defendant offers an explanation to the effect that she wasn’t in the habit of keeping records,” Mr De Waard said.

“She says she gets hundreds of emails a week and she deletes her emails weekly.”

He said CoreLogic, in July 2022, threatened this application, with Ms Collins’s legal team saying in August 2022 “our client did not keep records between periods 2017 and 2021”.

“For someone to say that they don’t keep records for the period between 2017 and 2021, when they’re running a business, presumably paying tax, that’s odd,” Mr De Waard said.

“That is inherently implausible.”

Judge Clarke said her obligation to the Australian Taxation Office as a company director, she must have keep those records for seven years.

Mr De Waard said CoreLogic cannot move the lawsuit forward at the moment.

“It’s being hamstrung by this (disclosure issue),” he said.

Ms Collins’ barrister Liam Kennedy said his client no longer has those documents in her possession.

Corelogic’s application to the court on June 20 was seeking “a significant remedy”, primarily seeking judgment, or provide access to the account keeping software Ms Collins used 2017-2021 and the missing documents, and/or provide a legitimate explanation.

Judge Clarke’s order was that “within seven days of this order, the defendant must produce for inspection the original documents providing the plaintiff access to the defendant’s accounting and account keeping software that was in use by the defendant’s business between May 1, 2017 and July 1, 2021”.

Originally published as Mortgage broker Kara Collins of Yellow Brick Road being sued by CoreLogic