Tweet of the week:
āļø
Livin' La Vida Luna y Luca
Dia managed to grab a quick pic of this bonding sesh before I yelled, "Feet off the book, Luca." and ruined the moment.
I can't help myself. š¤·āāļø
Banned For Life š¤
We're supposed to buy on our next new construction project on 2/7/24.
The title company reached out 10 days before our scheduled closing to make sure all our ducks were in a row.
The lender replied with a huge bomb, "This one may be getting withdrawn."
??? I was blindsided ???
Context
I've worked with this hard money lender a dozen+ times before. They're my go-to financing option for every project I take on.
I like them so much that I've brought no less than 6 investors to their pro-level borrower program and generated thousands of dollars in referral fees for myself.
But the show is over...
Because I made a stupid f*king mistake to save myself 10 minutes of headache.
Proof of Funds
When obtaining a loan to buy property, banks (even hard money lenders), want to see proof of funds from the borrower in the form of a bank statement.
For this upcoming project, we were set to borrow a little over $1M.
For a loan of this size, the lender wanted to make sure I could show $360,000 as proof of funds:
- $180K - Down Payment
- $180K - Working Capital
I'm not Tony Soprano. I don't have $360,000 cash sitting in a bank account ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
So I did what I always do when I need to bridge the gap on proof of funds. I logged in and pulled a statement from BOMAD (Bank of Mom and Dad).
To be clear - I'm an authorized user of my parents' bank accounts. But when you pull the statement, the header page has their name on it, not mine.
So I popped into Canva, uploaded the PDF, replaced the text "Bharat" with "Sunny", exported the file, and sent it over without a second thought.
I received this email from my loan analyst a day or two later.
My stomach dropped the moment I saw it. I knew I was in deep shit.
The phone call went like this.
Lender: So it looks like these PDFs were doctored. The fraud team flagged your account...
Me: **Silence**
Lender: I'm sorry, but you're banned for life.
Me: **More silence - trying to think my way out of this problem** Is this reversible? I can explain what happened, but if it's not reversible - I'll save us both some time
Lender: I can try to appeal the decision on your behalf, but I can't make any promises...
I'm embarrassed to say a healthy amount of groveling ensued... To no avail.
The final nail in the coffin was hammered in two days later.
Reflections
This is a massive blow to my ego and reputation.
I'm not someone who gets banned from stuff.
I'm not someone who skirts rules to get ahead.
And to this very moment, I do NOT think I committed fraud. I simply changed the name on the header page of an account statement where I'm already an authorized user.
So why am I telling you all this?
I'm not. I'm not telling you this.
I'm writing this down for myself and posting it in a public place to cement the lesson for myself.
This is my Tim Tebow losing to Ole Miss moment. Whiffing on a game he could have easily won because he took his team's success for granted. He thought his opponents would lie down and roll over. But that's not how the game works. That's not how business works.
It's almost silly to say this out loud. But Tebow took that loss as seriously as a heart attack and made a promise to himself and everyone else that he'll be a better player, leader, and teammate. The Gators ultimately went on to win the National Championship that year.
The damage is done here. I tried to reverse the clock and get a second chance, but, again, that's not how the game works.
I just have to be better.
