Don’t Let Banks, and Attorneys Intimidate You!

I have four different bank stories I could tell by way of illustration, all of which are quite bizarre, all of which were initiated by the bank when there was no default, and all of which ended up hugely in my favor. This is the cream of the crop.

When I bought my office ten years ago, back when real estate was appreciating fast in my county, and it seemed like a great idea, I took out a $250,000 line of credit from Sun Trust Bank to complete the purchase. It was an interest-only loan at 3 percent. Since the money was cheap for the next couple of years, I made interest-only payments, preferring to use my money on making a higher return elsewhere.

Then one day I got a letter inviting me to switch the loan to a term loan at 6 percent interest. Needless to say, I declined.

We went back and forth for months, and eventually they said that since I was a great customer and a private banking client, they would be happy if I just made $1,000-a-month principal payments. I did better, much better — I made thirteen consecutive $4,000 principal payments. Then one day, out of the blue, as I stood in Miami’s airport, about to take a flight to the UK, my cell phone rang. A man on the other end of the phone from Atlanta confirmed my name and told me my line of credit had been cancelled and that I had five days to pay them…