Accelerating the APR on matured HELOC's

The rate on our HELOC's automatically accelerates to 18% when the loan matures.

I am being told that this is okay legally, per contract law, we can accelrate the rate in the event of default (in this case, not paying it off at maturity).

Does anyone know if there's a link or statute somewhere I can refer to that confirms this?

Also, I am being told that the maximum APR is actually 25% for banks. Is this true? I've always understood it to be 18%.

You need to review Florida's usury laws. You can find them in the Florida Statutes book, chapter 687.

I reviewed the usury laws...thanks for the link.

One more question, or concern is a beter term:

Our HELOC agreements do not state explicitly that the post maturity rate will accelerate to 18%. In fact, it doesn't even mention anything about post maturity. It does say, of course, in general that the maximum rate is 18%.

By automatically accelerating the rate, but not disclosing this to the borrower, does that pose a problem for us?

If that is a feature of your plan, I would consider it as required to be disclosed.

Although by the time this happens, it's no longer a contracted plan, as the contract itself has gone into default and technically expired. However, I still would put it under "additional terms".

These are questions that really need to be run by your attorney. Without proper legal advice, you may jeopardize what little collateral you may have for interest you may never collect anyway.