Lawsuit: Brokerage behind $17M sale owes $300K in marketing fees

As a D’Aprile Properties agent worked to close Lake Geneva‘s second-priciest sale ever, the Chicago brokerage was being sued by marketing firm Xpressdocs over an allegedly unpaid $317,000 bill.

Texas-based Xpressdocs filed suit last month against D’Aprile Properties and its owner and CEO Ryan D’Aprile in Illinois federal court, alleging the real estate firm has refused to pay Xpressdocs for its work.

D’Aprile said in an email the two companies had a dispute and are resolving the matter.

“We continue to do business with them and will continue to do so. We expect it to be reconciled shortly,” he said.

Attorneys for Xpressdocs didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The suit alleges that D’Aprile Properties hadn’t paid its invoices since September 2021.

Xpressdocs has a large client base of real estate firms for which it produces marketing materials. It began working for D’Aprile in 2016, providing print, direct-mail, promotional products, and electronic marketing services, as well as access to the company’s proprietary online marketing platform, according to the complaint. The company continued to provide marketing services to D’Aprile until March 2022.

The legal entanglement started in the midst of D’Aprile closing one of the priciest Chicago-area sales of the year, a $17 million Lake Geneva home. The sale is the second-priciest ever in the affluent community known for its Gilded Age mansions built as second homes for Chicago business tycoons.

The lawsuit claims Xpressdocs has been trying to get payment from the brokerage since the firm stopped paying its bills.

In April, D’Aprile’s Ashlei Pearson, the brokerage’s compliance director, emailed Xpressdocs asking to set up a payment plan for the fees owed, and requested Xpressdocs resume services once a certain amount is paid, according to the suit.

“Importantly, Ms. Pearson did not argue that or otherwise claim the outstanding invoice amount owed by Defendants was incorrect or that it has issues with the services provided by Xpressdocs,” the suit said. “Unfortunately, the proposed payment plan was not a good faith effort to pay off the substantial outstanding invoices but rather an attempt to induce Xpressdocs into providing yet more services to Defendants for free.”

Xpressdocs then sent a demand letter in June, and all communication from the real estate firm ceased in July, the suit said.

It also claims D’Aprile’s related businesses — a real estate management company and mortgage lender called Midwest Lending Corporation, which is also named as a defendant — are intertwined and cannot claim insolvency to resolve the debt.

“Defendants have or will attempt to avoid their debt by claiming insufficient funds and/or insolvency of D’Aprile and (Midwest Lending Corporation),” the suit said. “Defendants’ purposeful undercapitalization of these entities to avoid the demands of their creditors would create injustice to Plaintiff.”

Through its lawsuit, Xpressdocs is seeking payment for the $317,000, as well as interest at the “highest rate permitted under law,” plus attorney fees and court costs.