We refinanced our home with Ameriquest in October. I contacted them to refinance for one reason, they said the do all the paperwork. I did not know they were subprime lenders for people with bad credit. Both my husband and I, even though we are young and this is our first house, had great credit. At least credit worth more than a subprime loan.
When we did refinance, we were never told about the prepayment penalty, although we did sign the paperwork stating we did have one. This was our first home, our first time refinancing, we didn't know anything and most of the papers we signed the loan officer just told us to sign, didn't tell us what they were for.
WELL - we decided to put our house up for sale a couple of months ago and called Ameriquest corporate and the local branch on several different occasions to find out if we had a prepayment penalty and we were told we did not each time! When an offer was put on our house, we called them once again to verify the payoff and THEN were told we had a prepayment penalty of over $5,000!!!
Then I come to find out that in Minnesota, a new law took effect in January which said that we could not be charged prepayment penalty's for selling your house, only for refinancing. I was so upset! You would think that Ameriquest would care about their customers enough so that they would become repeat customers. They could have told us about the new law, but they didn't.
We tried contacting them several time stating our situation and asked if there was anyway to come to some sort of agreement, maybe make payments anything. Each time we called, they were very rude and said we owe them that money up front if we sell our house and they don't care what our situation was, we signed the paperwork.
Also, when we closed, we found out that the appraiser appraised our house OVER what it was worth and it actually went through! So basically we have absolutely no equity in our house.
I have contacted so many people and nobody can help. I sent a letter to the Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission AND Ameriquest. Ameriquest sent me a letter back basically stating "Too bad." This company is a predatory lender and should be punished for taking advantage of people.
I feel so used and SO UPSET by this. We are forced to live in a house that is now too small for our family because we don't have an extra $5000 to pay a company that rips off it's customers! I am constantly looking for class actions against them because I guarantee I will be the first on the list.
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