SBA lenders are seeing more requests to finance online retail businesses which sell products either directly to consumers or through major online retail platforms, such as Amazon or Walmart. Much of the value of these businesses are in the inventory they sell online. Considering how to perfect and protect its lien in the Borrower’s inventory ... Read More

An underlying premise of the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) 7(a) loan program is to provide financing opportunities for small businesses that demonstrate repayment ability but lack adequate collateral. Overall, lenders are expected to use commercially reasonable and prudent practices to identify collateral, which conform to procedures for their similarly-sized non-SBA guaranteed commercial loans. Decisions regarding ... Read More

Not all loan defaults result in contentious interactions between the lender and the obligors on a commercial loan.  In some situations, obligors are motivated to work with the lender to liquidate business assets resulting in a higher recovery to assist with the pay down of the loan.  That can be a mutually beneficial relationship for ... Read More

The Small Business Administration (“SBA”) is known throughout the United States as a champion of small business. In order to uphold the integrity of the program, the SBA requires that a small business be owned and managed by individuals with good character to be eligible for a SBA loan. The SBA prohibits lenders from providing ... Read More

Guaranties are typically required on SBA loans, and while it is generally clear who must provide a full unconditional guaranty, it is more of a grey area when it comes to who must sign a limited guaranty for a particular transaction. Lenders must be cognizant of when limited guaranties may be required in order to ... Read More

As a continuation to the article Best Practices: General Title Exceptions – Part 1, this article will continue the overview of “general title exceptions”, which typically appear in an ALTA loan policy. Most of the general title exceptions should be addressed with the title agent by the lender (or lender’s counsel) so that: (i) they do ... Read More