Interesting question. ^redacted‌ is my go-to on SBA questions.

Great question. Unfortunately the SBA rules state that ownership interest is judged on a household basis. So the lender is required to combine the ownership interest between spouses and make the guarantee decision based on their combined ownership. So combined they would need to own less than 20% of any acquisition or if it is a partial acquisition they would need to maintain less than 20% of the ownership post acquisition to avoid the personal guarantee. Please let me know if you have any additional questions either here or directly at redacted