Is this Predatory Lending?

[Jeremy Namen]

I was in a partnership to buy rentals. My partner and i went separate ways and divided up the properties. They had all been in the biz name and 3 guaranteed by him so until i was ready to get a loan i went into a lease with option contract for the remaining balance on the note attached to each prop. When it was time to exercise the option i actually sold 2 of them back to him and went to the same bank that holds all the notes to take over the loan on the last one, my Principal Residence. The bank did an appraisal which came back way too high IMO and told me that the only way that they would allow it was if i took 2 more props from my ex partner and paid off his taxes and got him current on all of his loans.I also had to roll my 2 other invest prop loans into this note and they were not even due. .. I ended up doing this but im just thinking that this is fraud.On top of this the note ballooned in just one year and the way it is structured has made it virtually impossible to refinance elsewhere. The kicker is that this was a commercial loan and while i am the guarantor they put everything in my business name. My business is a single member LLC..In short I approached them with only the intentions of securing my personal primary residence and was told that bc the property had been cross collateralized with others in the old biz loan that I had no other way of securing my home either through them or with another institution. The other properties i was required to take were not the ones that were crossed. I would not have chosen this loan if i had any sort of choice. Am i out of luck because of the way it was structured? It sounds crazy but I really did not know that there was a difference in residential loans and commercial loans. But maybe when a principal residence is involved the commercial aspect will not matter?

[Bill Gulley]

The only thing I see as crazy, is that someone is playing the part of an innocent, youthful victim. Maybe your best course of action is to ask the court for you to be found incompetent and nullify your transaction, that may come with the chance of being committed. At the very least, I'd suggest you sell everything before the loan comes due and get out of real estate until you can take responsibility for your actions. :)