@redacted‌ thank you for tagging me on this. A Confession of Judgement is a loan provision that allows a lender to secure a judgement against a borrower without having a formal trial if the borrower has met default conditions on the loan. A Confession of Judgement is illegal in many states. However, in most standard loan documentation systems it is standard language in most Bank produced loan documents. Many lenders will negotiate it out. On the SBA side, the SBA historically has included it in their standard notes in the states where it is not illegal. So you may not have an option. You can try to negotiate out, but if it is the standard SBA template, the SBA does not negotiate its loan documents. With that said, in my 30 year career in lending we have rarely seen a judge hold up a confession of judgement. Most lenders will not even pursue it as an option as they know it will typically get thrown out of court. But if you can get it removed, it definitely benefits you to do so. If you have counsel review your loan documents, they will likely flag it and you can ask them to negotiate it with the lender or lender's counsel for you. Good luck.

Over 30 years ago, I encountered a Pennsylvania confession of judgment. In that situation, a seller financing note, which was about 30% of the purchase price,included a COJ provision. The successor to the original buyer was attempting to renegotiate the terms of the seller note and made a very casual statement about possibly needing to bankrupt the entity. A threat of bankruptcy was considered an event of default and the seller was able to lock the buyer out of the business and eventually reacquire the business without compensating the buyer. This was my first experience with a “Philadelphia lawyer” and one of those business experiences it is impossible to forget.