Owners of strip malls who are worried because their properties are under threat of foreclosure may find that commercial loan workouts can save them. The economic downtrend has severely reduced the potential income of many commercial properties and shopping plazas and mini malls have been affected as well because the lease holders suffer from reduced sales due to the higher unemployment rate. The decline in sales has forced businesses to move to other places where there are more customers while some will simply shut down their operations. This decline in the number of lease holders will then result in a substantial reduction of the strip mall owners’ monthly cash flow. Some of the owners will experience problems in coming up with the mortgage payments so that the threat of foreclosure may be a significant problem for them.

For such cases, a strip mall loan modification will provide the necessary changes that will assist the owner in staying out of financial trouble. To illustrate, the modifications that can be made include the lowering of the interest rates, reductions in the principal amounts, and the temporary postponement of payments. On the other hand, it should be noted that banks tend to discourage borrowers from applying for a commercial loan modification because of the reduction in their monthly income. The point of view of the banks is easy to comprehend, particularly when there is an uncommonly huge number of requests for commercial loan workouts as a result of an economic slowdown. This may severely affect the business plans of the lender. Therefore, the first reaction of a bank to such a request is to reject it, unless sufficient evidence is provided by the borrower to show the lender that it will be better off with a debt restructuring than a foreclosure.

A commercial loan audit is one of the techniques recommended by companies that provide expert assistance to borrowers so that negotiating with the banks will be less problematic and easier. When preparing for discussions with the bank, this is an essential process. In this process, the paperwork for the loan are painstakingly scrutinized in the attempt to look for any possible violations made by the lender against laws for protecting borrowers. This procedure is crucial because studies have shown that there were indeed many instances of such violations as lenders attempted to process more loans during the boom period. The large volume of applications for loans encouraged the banks to take shortcuts even if that meant violating the law.

The capability of the borrower to negotiate will be greatly increased if such violations are found. This is because the bank will be unable to execute the provisions of the original agreement aside from incurring many other serious penalties. This implies that the lender would not have the right to foreclose the property and even if such a process has already been launched, the court will usually require the bank to halt the process until such time that a decision on the case has been attained. With the benefit of such knowledge, the borrower would then have a stronger case when asking for a modification of the payment scheme. The lender would then be motivated to find out if certain changes to the commercial mortgage agreement can be made.

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