Can an attorney successfully establish equitable estoppel against a lender for failing to pay a prepayment penalty?

"The doctrine of equitable estoppel is founded on concepts of equity and fair dealing. It provides that a person may not deny the existence of a state of facts if he intentionally led another to believe a particular circumstance to be true and to rely upon such belief to his detriment. The elements of the doctrine are that (1) the party to be estopped must be apprised of the facts; (2) he must intend that his conduct shall be acted upon, or he must so act that the party asserting the estoppel has a right to believe it was so intended; (3) the other party must be ignorant of the true state of facts; and (4) he must

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rely upon the conduct to his injury." (Strong v. County of Santa Cruz (1975) 15 Cal.3d 720, 725.)

Fleming has not established an equitable estoppel here. Fleming was not ignorant of the true state of the factsi.e., what the option agreement required to properly exercise the option. Similar to this case, in Sanguansak v. Myers (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 110, 113-114, the appellant paid off the entire amount due on a promissory note secured by a deed of trust, which had been obtained with the help of an attorney. This action caused a prepayment penalty to become due, which the bank did not mention when it accepted the full payoff. (Id. at p. 114.) Ultimately, foreclosure proceedings were commenced when the appellant failed to pay the prepayment penalty. (Ibid.) The appellant argued the respondent was equitably estopped from relying on the unpaid prepayment penalty as a basis for the foreclosure proceedings. (Id. at p. 117.) The court rejected that argument, as the appellant was not ignorant of the true state of the facts, having been represented by counsel when the promissory note was executed, and being aware that a prepayment penalty would be assessed. (Id. at p. 118.)