The state Department of Business Regulation has suspended the license of Pawtucket real estate broker Christine Adams, alleging that she “has refused, and continues to refuse” to return a $10,000 deposit she received on Oct. 29, 2008, from buyers in a short-sale transaction.

The June 24 emergency order signed by DBR Director A. Michael Marques is also a “notice of intent to revoke” Adams’ license.

Adams said she will exercise her right to have a hearing to contest the enforcement action.

“These claims were falsely filed against me,” Adams said in a telephone interview Wednesday. She said that the DBR’s account of the situation is “all wrong.”

The DBR order also alleges that Adams, the owner and principal broker of Future Properties Inc., re-listed a three-family house at 7 Brighton St., Providence, on the statewide Multiple Listing Service after her listing agreement with the seller expired.

The order added that Adams allegedly “misrepresented the identity” of the property owner to the buyers who gave her the $10,000 deposit.

Jane Driver of Armory Properties LLC represented the buyers of 7 Brighton St.: Susan J. Dupre, and her father, Robert E. Dupre.

They are the sister and father of B.J. Dupre, a partner of the Armory Revival Co., a real estate development firm based on the West Side of Providence. Armory Properties is the sales division of Armory Revival. The Dupres made the complaint against Adams to the DBR, Driver said.

Driver said the sale of 7 Brighton St. — a three-family Victorian near Broadway — did go through on April 28, 2009. The house was sold for $200,000.

Adams’ listing agreement for the house expired on Sept. 13, 2008, according to the DBR.

Adams allegedly accepted a $10,000 deposit from the Dupres based on an offer they made in October, for a sale to be closed on Dec. 1, 2008. According to the DBR, Adams was “not listed as a broker” on this agreement, which was prepared by Driver.

Nevertheless, no closing took place on Dec. 1; the DBR order said “the complainants” allege the sale fell through because of Adams’ “unwarranted assertions that the lending bank would accept the terms of a so-called ‘short sale,’ which it declined.”

On Jan. 21, 2009, Adams sent Driver a “release of purchase agreement and disbursement of escrow form,” the DBR order said, but the Dupres were not in agreement with the terms, and their lawyer drafted an alternative agreement, forwarded to Adams in March.

Adams “failed to respond” to that letter and subsequent requests for return of the escrowed deposit, according to the DBR.

Adams “was aware from at least Dec. 30, 2008, forward that the ownership of the deposit amount of $10,000 was in dispute, but failed to deposit” the money after 180 days to the state’s General Treasurer, as required by law, according to the DBR.

Adams “had no part in the negotiation, document preparation or execution of the purchase-and-sales agreement in effect” when the Dupres bought the house in April, the order added.

In an interview Wednesday, Susan Dupre said she never met Christine Adams, but her brother, B.J. Dupre, found the house for her. Dupre said she formerly lived in California, where she worked as a worldwide events coordinator for Apple Inc., and her brother was helping her relocate to Rhode Island.

According to the DBR order, Driver discovered, when preparing the Dupres’ purchase-and-sales agreement, that Kathryn M. Taleriko was not the legal owner of the property. Taleriko had purchased the property in 1997 and refinanced it in 2003, but last year, she quitclaimed the property to her friend, Khaled Aziz, also known as Karl Aziz.

Aziz said in an interview Wednesday that Taleriko temporarily quitclaimed the property to him because she owed him money for renovating part of the house, and she did not want him to lose all interest should the house go into foreclosure.

Driver said Taleriko owed more than $300,000 on the house at the time of the short sale, and the bank demanded $200,000.

In an interview Wednesday, Taleriko said she had been trying to sell the house for about two years. “I lost everything because of the nonsense that she pulled,” she said of Adams.

According to the DBR order, Driver found that Taleriko was not the legal owner of the property when she signed the purchase-and-sales agreement on Nov. 6.

Taleriko was the owner again by the time the sale occurred in April.

Adams said she lives in Seekonk, Mass., and her agency, which specializes in distressed property sales, has been located at 727 Central Ave. in Pawtucket for about one year.

While her license is in suspension, she said, her agency, which has 27 full- and part-time agents, is being run by associate broker Bernadette Reyes-Forbes.

“I look forward to having the opportunity to tell my side of the story,” at her DBR hearing, Adams said. “… I was condemned before I even have a chance to have a hearing.”

“Never in my wildest dreams did I expect a real estate agent not to return the money,” Susan Dupre said. “That’s a huge amount of money. And that is a huge amount of what I was going to use to renovate this home.”

cdunn@projo.com