Lessons Learned: For those of you with a military affiliation (SCRA)

I've posted before about the issues with the bank I got my SBA loan from. Never the correct amount drawn, never on the correct day, or from the correct account. No way to view a balance online, and the statements are always incorrect. The loan statements show my payment as XYZ (which is correct) then show amount due of <$10k which is false. Now the next issue and tips for those with a military affiliation: The SCRA applies to you (and your SBA loan). If you signed and are a personal guarantor, it applies. There recently has been a major case of an SBA lender denying SCRA and foreclosing on a property. Very big settlement out of that one. If you are in the reserve (not national guard) the SCRA applies when you get orders for active duty of ANY length. 1 day or more. Your two weeks of annual training applies. If you are national guard, any title 10 orders apply, but if you are on title 32, they must be 30 days or more to apply. Check your state laws, because most states have an SCRA law that strengthens the federal law, and sometimes gets rid of these time requirements. What must a you and lender know or do: 1) The SCRA applies from the day you receive orders - not the day they start. This can be months before your orders start in some cases, but it usually weeks. 2) You must notify the lender of your SCRA request and provide either a copy of your orders OR a written letter from your Commander. That's it. You do not have to send pay stubs, fill out any forms, etc. Those things are explicitly stated as not allowed. 3) You may request SCRA coverage for any debt you took on before the period of active duty on your orders. 4) The lender must: Reduce interest rates on the loan to 6% or lower. The payment must be reduced accordingly, the interest must be forgiven, not added elsewhere, and the principal may not be accelerated. 5) For loan products that are backed my a mortgage or "mortgage like" items like UCC filings and liens, the interest rate reduction applies for 12 months following the last day of your orders - this is most SBA products, including working capital loans. 6) you may request this any time up to 180 days AFTER the end of your orders 7) any interest or fees/penalties paid while waiting on the lender to implement the changes must be refunded - not added as a payment to the loan etc unless you give permission for that 8) No fees, penalties, etc can be applied if it would push the interest rate to above 6%. Fees and penalties are considered forms of interest by the court. 9) They may not mark your file or in anyway use your reserve status as a discriminatory or underwriting consideration. My bank has been denying my SCRA rights for about 45 days. I have advised them they need to run the denial through their internal counsel but so far have not. Eventually they relented but have yet to implement it. There are no shortage of attorneys who will take on an SBA loan SCRA case, so screen out the best ones. The statute of the SCRA specifically awards damages and attorneys fees, along with stiff penalties. They know they will get paid, and most SCRA cases are in the hundreds of dollars, where an SBA loan case could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they are happy to do it on contingency. Damages are typically the amount you were owed being paid, plus 2x that amount. The DOJ starts with penalties at $55k per denial on the first offense. Recently a bank delayed implementation of the SCRA by 60 days, and the service member was awarded $80k in damages for the delay - I use that example to show how serious its taken. So my advice: know the rules and dont back down. My bank is "figuring out" how to do it, but at this point we're pushing 60 days. Although theyve written to me that they now understand what they need to do, its still taken forever so the attorney is stepping in next week, as I'm owed a significant refund for payments made while covered.