' (Prather, 'Mortgage Loans and The Usury Laws,' 16 Business Lawyer, 181, 187.) Generally, any compensation, remuneration or other benefit exacted by a lender as a part of a loan or forbearance transaction is interest and will render usurious a loan made at the maximum interest rate. (Williston, 6 Contracts, section 1682, rev. ed. 1958; Bayne v. Jolley, 227 Cal.App.2d 630, 632--633, 38 Cal.Rptr. 873; Charlotte Guyer & Associates v. Franklin Factors, 211 Cal.App.2d 690, 694, 27 Cal.Rptr. 575; Janisse v. Winston Investment Co., 154 Cal.App.2d 580, 582, 317 P.2d 48; Wheeler v. Superior Mortgage Co., 196 Cal.App.2d 822, 829, 17 Cal.Rptr. 291. While a lender may make a reasonable charge for investigating, arranging, negotiating, brokering, making, servicing, collecting, and enforcing the obligation, such items must be confined to specific services or expenses incidental to the loan incurred in such a way to preclude them from being a device through which additional interest or profit on the loan may be exacted, and such a determination is a question of fact as to whether the additional charges are legitimate or represent an additional exaction of interest so as to make the loan transaction usurious.

This finding is supported by the record and is sufficient to attribute the "financing bonus" as part of the interest on the loan. See Heald v. Friis-Hansen, 52 Cal.2d 834, 837, 345 P.2d 457 (1959); Bayne v. Jolly, 227 Cal.App.2d 630, 632, 38 Cal.Rptr. 873 (1964). Since AIF and TWF were under the common control of Jack Baruch, the payments to TWF could properly be treated as additional interest to AIF.

Under California law additional compensation received by the lender must be considered as interest in determining whether a loan is usurious. SeeBayne v. Jolley , 227 Cal. App. 2d 630, 633, 38 Cal.Rptr. 873 (Cal. Ct. App. 1964) ("The extraction of an additional payment in the form of a commission from which the lender will benefit, either directly or indirectly, is in effect a charge of an additional interest and will render usurious a loan made at the maximum interest rate [of 10%]."). However, any such "bonus" must have demonstrable value at the time of the loan.

In some circumstances, commissions or similar payments relating to a loan may constitute additional interest for the purposes of assessing whether the loan is usurious. (Bayne v. Jolley (1964) 227 Cal.App.2d 630, 633.) 2.

The California Constitution, article 15, section 1 sets the highest rate of interest that may lawfully be charged at 10 percent per annum or 5 percent per annum plus the prevailing rate of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. (Roes v. Wong (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 375, 378.) Additional payments to the lender (other than principal payments) are in effect a charge of additional interest and will render usurious a loan made at the maximum interest rate. (Bayne v. Jolley (1964) 227 Cal.App.2d 630, 632.) Any person who has paid more than the maximum rate may recover as damages "treble the amount of the money so paid . . . providing such action shall be brought within one year after such payment or delivery."