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It wasn't much - a run down New Englander with peeling paint on a quiet Pembroke street - but to William Bouley, "it was the first home I've had in 40 years. I came from the streets, and here I am, and here is all that I've got."
Now Bouley, at 50, may have to face those streets again, thanks to an ill-fated refinancing loan from Ameriquest Mortgage Company that resulted in Bouley and his wife paying more than 60 percent of their limited income toward their mortgage. Yet while AMC. Ameriquest's servicing arm, threatens to foreclose on the Bouleys' home, the company is pressing for him to go even deeper into debt with yet another mortgage refinancing.
Despite signed releases, Ameriquest "will not comment on any borrower's financial dealings," said company spokesperson Alan Maltun, but he stressed that Ameriquest policy is to clearly disclose loan terms, to allow customers to back out of the loan a week after closing "and when a problem does arise, it does its very best to work things out."
Added Maltun: "The vast majority of our customers are satisfied."
But several class action lawsuits along with regulators from some 30 states charge such problem loans are not mere glitches of the company's intentional pattern of predatory lending.
Predatory lending targets poorly educated, risky borrowers with highcost, high-interest loans. They are given not based on their ability to pay back the loan, but on the basis of being able to collect on the collateral, through the forced sale or foreclosure of their house.
Ameriquest vehemently disputes this charge, arguing that most of its customers are solidly middle-class borrowers with spotty credit reports who are happy to get a sub-prime mortgage, even though it might cost more than a conventional loan.
The company points to its best practices, which it says, insures that loan terms are clearly disclosed.
Still, while the company is fighting such accusations in the press, and the law suits in courts, it also has been willing to come to term.
It settled one suit last May in California for as much as $60 million and in July settled a banking complaint in Connecticut for $7 million. it also has disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing...