Mortgage Broker Agreement

Mortgage agreements contain many intricacies that can significantly affect the rights of both the homeowner and the mortgage company. This Mortgage Broker Agreement sets the terms of the loan as it relates to a mortgage broker.

 Letter of Credit Agreement

At the request of a bank's customer, the bank will create an irrevocable standby Letter of Credit in favor of a specific beneficiary. The holder of this letter may draw upon the credit line on demand.

 Judgment Assignment

We recommend you copy the party whom the judgment is held against to help promote collection. This is a strictly tactical decision based on the strategy worked out between the Judgment holder and the new Assignee.

 Guarantor, Letter trying to collect Form

Collecting money is more a sales function than anything else. This is especially true in your first contact with the “other side.” In this case, this is the first direct letter to the Guarantor, giving them the bad news that they may have to come through and pay the debt for the party they guaranteed if for. Since you only have one chance to make a first impression, it is important to use it wisely here. You have substantial legal leverage with a guarantee to back up any threats you wish to make later. On your first contact, however, we strongly recommend you try to encourage payment as opposed to launch a hardball attack on the other side. First, the Guarantor will be mad at the nonpaying debtor. You can use that to your advantage and encourage them to help you collect the debt from the debtor so they do not have to do so. The best way to achieve this is to get this initial letter out early in the collection process. In other words, get the letter out to the guarantor before the debt is very late and while small payments can bring it current and possibly get it reinstated, depending on your circumstances and the credit standards of your company, or yourself personally. Another reason for a more friendly approach is that collection agents and lawyers have pursued debts more vigorously in the last decade than ever before, with a more varied approach and with hardball tactics. Debtors have been worn down by the process and are quick to seek bankruptcy protection, as the increasingly caseload shows. You don’t want to drive them there and you don’t want them to be immediately in that total adversary position with you. We recommend you initially try to get them back on a paying basis.

 Guarantor - Final Letter trying to Collect

Collecting money is more a sales function than anything else. However, this letter goes out when the party has not responded to your first letter. Since they are stonewalling it, you can now move quickly through the collection process knowing you tried your best to collect in a more amicable fashion. If you have started this process early in the default stage, then the guarantor may still respond on this second notice. It is our advice that you wait another 14 days, and then proceed expeditiously since you can always have your collection agent or lawyer settle the matter as the process unwinds.

 Guarantee Termination

Terminating your guarantee only limits your liabilities from the date received by the party who has your guarantee. Therefore, you must send it by registered mail, by courier with signature required, or by a recognized overnight delivery service by a firm such as FedEx. You should only take this action if you believe the party whose debt you are guaranteeing will continue to make payments against the guarantee outstanding and the party holding the guarantee will not just use this to call the debt and therefore put you back in the same place you were before, except matters may be even worse now if you have triggered a default on the matter. These terminations are usually used by principals in businesses who no longer have those roles and whose guarantees were secondary, or good faith, guarantees of the debts in question. In these instances, the Termination can be very helpful over the long term to extricate you from these contingent liabilities. I have made use of this approach effectively in the past when selling a business or transferring management roles to another party. The key cautionary note is to avoid taking this action if you believe it will trigger a default which, in turn, will weaken the original party and put your guarantee front and center for collection by the holder of your guarantee. Watch out for this boomerang problem.

 Estoppels Letter

An estoppel letter is typically used in a transfer or conveyance of real property before the Closing transaction. It is a document sent to a bank (or other lender), to a homeowners' association (or condo association), to a city/municipality, or a tenant requesting a payoff of a mortgage, assessments or taxes due, or rental amounts due on a lease, to incorporate these amounts into the Settlement Statement for the buyer and seller of the real estate. All assessments and payments due must be incorporated into the amounts due at Closing and paid at the time of the Closing. Some amounts may be pro-rated, but all must be included in the Settlement Statement. The estoppel letter facilitates this process. "All assessments and payments due..." regarding an association should also include and not be limited to monthly or quarterly maintenance but ALSO any fines or other levies that are internal to the association and have not yet been processed through the courts which would result in a lien. Too often these other charges are missed my closing officers. An assessment is not a a monetary amount for a specific fine directed towards one member of the association but rather a general term for a financial charge towards the community. An Estoppel Letter determines payoff amounts at a closing or sale of a property. Both private and public lenders provide these as a matter of course. These can also be used for corporate banking situations when acquirers and/or lenders take out old loans. This Estoppel Letter formalizes the process and will assist the escrow agent, attorneys, or whomever else is handling the transaction to handle it appropriately and deliver you your funds.

 Discharge of Guarantor

As a guarantor, you can seek discharge on a variety of grounds. Sometimes a modest direct payment will get you off the overall guarantee. It is well worth getting in any case. Often, the guarantor can get reimbursed in whole or in part by the party they made the guarantee for. This is a matter of negotiation, best handled with the original loan and guarantee documents.

 Deposit, Forfeit due to No Delivery

The purpose of this letter should be to get the customer to accept delivery of the product or service you offer. If you are in the habit of requesting a deposit before beginning work, you are well advised to use a contract, even a very short one, to indicate that not accepting custom goods or services in a timely manner after preparation will lead to the forfeit of the deposit as liquidated damages.

 Demand for Additional Collateral

This Demand for Additional Collateral can help the creditor improve their security position as well as provide the debtor more time to repay the loan. This can radically improve the probability of improving the collection percentage of the creditor as well. We strongly recommend taking this approach after payment problems have been incurred but prior to other court filings.