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Attorneys for Commercial Loan Modification. What You Need to Know.

Ted Karsch
2 min read

Commercial real estate owners who are considering hiring an attorney to handle their commercial loan modification should investigate the background and experience of the person they hiring so that they know in advance what to expect.

In my experience as a commercial loan modification specialist I have found that many attorneys who advertise themselves as commercial loan modification attorneys actually have very little experience performing successful loan workouts. Unfortunately, as many people know, there is an over supply of attorneys in the United States. This forces many lawyers to follow the latest and hottest trends in order to get new business and survive. You may see the same people who used to do accident and injury work now advertising their services as loss mitigation specialists because it has become such a needed service. For this reason the commercial real estate owner should definitely do their homework and research the actual experience of the person they are hiring.

What You Should Expect from a Commercial Loan Modification Attorney:

  1. A Money Back Guarantee: Is your attorney willing to give a complete refund if he or she is unable to successfully modify your commercial mortgage?  Very few commercial loan workout companies are offering a money back guarantee but it is will worth the research to find a company or attorney that is willing to offer a written money back guarantee if they are unable to modify your loan.
  2. A Written Plan or Proposal:  Make sure that your commercial loan workout attorney gives you a very detailed written proposal of all of the services that he or she is going to perform on your behalf.  Commercial loan modification can be a complicated process that requires many hours of work and research.
  3. Satisfied Clients. Ask your commercial loan modification attorney if they can give you the contact information for any clients that they have successfully helped to modify their commercial loans.  They may not be able to give you any references because of their privacy policy or because of attorney client privilege but it can’t hurt to ask.  An attorney who successfully modified the commercial loans of many clients surely must have one or two who would agree to attest to the experience and results that had with the attorney who helped them.
  4. Who Does the Work? Find out if your commercial loan modification attorney will be doing the negotiating and processing him or her self.  Many attorneys are too busy to actually perform the important work themselves and they may be outsourcing your commercial loan modification to a third party.  You may be able to save money and time by cutting out the middleman and going directly to the company that performs the negotiation and works with the bank.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.