No, friends, this is not a riddle. When your bank or the SBA says “jump”, you most definitely should be saying “how high?” Better yet, you may even want to anticipate how how they will ask you to jump ahead of time. Let me explain in more concrete terms. First, when they ask you for paperwork, pretend that paperwork is a life or death matter. I am often blown away when a client takes 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or a month to send requested paperwork to the bank. When a settlement could save you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you should be treating the request as if they are giving away FREE MONEY, and the only way to get it is to get them the paperwork as quickly as humanly possible. Otherwise, you risk having your file fall to the bottom of a pile, or worse, you end up annoying your workout officer, who feels that you are not taking your OIC seriously.
Often times, the OIC process can take a while (a looooong while). As a result, by the time the SBA actually reviews your OIC, some of the info provided is stale. Pretty annoying right? Agreed. With that said, the best way to handle it is to swear at your computer, punch a wall, or kick a chair. What you should NOT do is protest the request for new information. Remember, an SBA Offer In Compromise is not a right, so they don’t owe you anything. You are asking them for a favor, so as the one’s who would be granting the favor, it would be wise to accept their request with a smile, and then get the info to them as quickly as possible. I’ve had clients who want the SBA to be investigated for fraud because their file got lost. While it was pretty annoying to me too, I cautioned my client not to cut off his nose to spite his face. Every decision you make when working on an OIC should be done in order to make your bankers life easier. Timely, complete, and accurate info will go a long way towards doing that.
Distressed Loan Advisors (http://www.JasonTees.com) offers expert advice about dealing with SBA Loan Default and Forgiveness, and can be reached at 1-877-436-4533 orloanhelp@jasontees.com.
