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More than 27,000 Floridians are expected to get restitution checks from Ameriquest Mortgage Co. as part of a nationwide settlement, state officials said Thursday.

The California-based company signed the settlement with 49 states and the District of Columbia, agreeing to provide $295 million in consumer restitution and to make sweeping reforms of practices that the states say amounted to predatory lending.

Checks are being mailed this week. Claims forms were sent to eligible consumers in July.

Affected Floridians will each receive about $780, according to the Florida Attorney General’s Office and the Office of Financial Regulation.

Under the settlement, consumers who opted to receive the restitution payments relinquished their right to file lawsuits related to the loans covered by the settlement.

However, consumers who participated in the settlement did not give up any claim they may otherwise raise if their home goes into foreclosure.

Florida had the second-largest number of claimants after California, which had 44,000 and ahead of Texas, which had 20,000.

Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office, said about 60 percent of those eligible responded to the state’s request for claims involving Ameriquest loans.

The 2006 settlement resolved allegations that Ameriquest and its affiliates misrepresented or did not adequately disclose the terms of home loans, such as whether a loan carried a fixed or an adjustable rate; charged excessive loan-origination fees and prepayment penalties; refinanced borrowers into improper or inappropriate loans; or improperly inflated appraisals used to qualify borrowers for loans.

The settlement included Ameriquest’s parent company, ACC Capital Holding Corp., with subsidiaries Town & Country Credit Corp online payday advance. –>. and AMC Mortgage Services Inc., formerly known as Bedford Home Loans.

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