redactedDeal life starts when the contract is signed, not when the business is listed. That is also when the scariest surprises tend to show up. With Halloween around the corner, here is a story about a ghost that almost haunted a closing. The setup Picture a management buyout, roughly three quarters of the way to closing. Financing was lined up and the documents were nearly final. Everyone was feeling good. Then an email arrived from the lender’s lawyer. Their execution search had turned up a judgment against someone with our client’s exact name and exact date of birth. The ghost Our client told us right away that it wasn’t him. He had never heard of the creditor and had never been sued. We believed him. The bank was not satisfied with his word, and that is the part that surprises people. A lender cannot close on a borrower’s say so when a registered judgment could cloud its security. So we went to the source. We contacted the judgment creditor’s lawyer, gave them enough detail to tell our client apart from their debtor, and asked for written confirmation. After some back and forth, they confirmed the debtor was a different person and sent a clearance letter. The lender put it on file, the ghost was gone, and the deal moved forward. The lesson: innocent is not the same as cleared Being innocent is not the same as being cleared. Your client may know he is not the judgment debtor, but the proof that satisfies a lender usually has to come from outside the deal, from the party that holds the judgment. These hits tend to appear in the final round of searches, when timelines are tight and patience is thin. A simple name match can freeze funding even when nothing is wrong. Every day spent untangling a mistaken identity is a day the deal can cool. Lenders get nervous, buyers start second guessing, and the momentum you worked hard to build starts to leak away. What brokers can do Encourage buyers to run execution and litigation searches early, before the deal hits the home stretch. Name matches are far easier to handle when there is still time on the clock. If a client’s name comes back on a writ, do not wait for the lender to ask twice. Get counsel involved right away and start the clearance letter moving. A ghost on a search only stays scary if nobody shines a light on it. Want to talk through a deal with a similar wrinkle? Book time with me at forgionecounsel.ca. This story is a composite with changed facts and is for general information only. It is not legal advice, and it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. redacted