Attorneys
Attorneys are identified as a professional Strategic Partner of the Note Servicing Center inasmuch as the clients they serve are often the same type of clients served by the Note Servicing Center, particularly the Family Law Attorney, Business Law Attorney or Trust Attorney.
A Strategic Partner is defined as a Professional whose does is not a competitor, but who has something to benefit the Note Servicing Business while at the same time, the Note Servicing Business can benefit their business. As an example; Our clients who hold notes secured by Real Estate or a Chattel, Leasehold, Business FF&E or Contract typically need an Attorney while the Attorney’s client almost always need a servicing company to collect from the borrower (buyer) disburse to lender (seller), take care of the reporting, provide documentation for the CPA and to monitor and pay, in many cases taxes and insurance.
An Attorney played an important role in the beginning of the Note Servicing Center in a law suit against a Broker who had sold a Restaurant and bar including the Real Estate, using Seller Finance with 165 separate Investors. The fame of the Note Servicing Company spread throughout the town and within a few weeks another attorney arrived on the doorstep of the office with a shopping bag literally full of I.O.U’s.
Some of the I.O.U’s were even written on the corner of a paper bag and various sizes, shapes and colors of scratch paper and sticky tabs. The attorney reported one of his long time clients, a proprietor of a small but popular neighborhood grocery store on the West Side of Merced, had died. His heirs discovered the kindly old gentleman grocer had been extending credit to his clientele since inception over the past 30 years. He had kept the record in a most nontraditional manner and to make matters worse, charged differing interest rates to different customers… Regardless of the format these I.O.U.’s had all elements necessary to qualify as promissory notes, negotiable instruments with intrinsic value…hundreds of them. The amounts varied as well as due dates and interest rates. The face value of many of the notes represented several hundred dollars. Tom became a hero to the attorney and to the family. It took several days however, as he had to sort out the scraps of paper, enter each in an excel spread sheet and provided the heirs with an orderly verifiable document from which they were able to estimate the value of the receivables for distribution along with other assets.
It was obvious to the entrepreneurial Standen, that the Note Servicing Center, as a third party authority, had the ability to not only service plain vanilla real estate notes, but also could deliver a valuable service and provide solutions for problems often encountered by Tax Attorneys, Estate, Family Law and Business Attorney’s. It was not unusual in a divorce situation for the wife to get the family dwelling because of custody of the children, with the equity balanced by execution of a note in favor of the husband secured by the real estate. Collection would be near impossible without a third party servicer. It is unlikely an ex-husband will foreclose on the wife and leave his children homeless and yet, he would appreciate getting paid. A servicer is able to find a buyer for the note, or at least as a third party authority is more likely to successfully get the payment current. In another case, the value and division of inherited assets are likely to be balanced or equalized with the execution of secured promissory notes, again requiring a third party authority or, quite often notes are part of an estate and require servicing or need to be sold. Again, it is not unusual for the business law attorney charged with the equal disposition of assets upon dissolution of a partnership to be frustrated with partnership disputes and turns to the note specialist and servicer for fulfillment of their charge.
Thomas Standen IV, President and CEO of the Note Servicing Center and staff stand ready to take on these tasks and come along side these Professional Strategic Partners. Our service makes them appear more professional and part of their team to solve the problems for their clientele. The Note Servicing Center is licensed by the CALBRE, is bonded and is independently audited and reported to the CABRE on a quarterly and annual basis. The computer system, proprietary in design, meets all requirements of trust accounting and reporting for the Department of Real Estate and is updated as new regulations occur.
We look forward to assisting the Legal Profession in the resolving situations involving the distribution of and estate where servicing of notes or other cash flows as required including the dissolution of a General Partnership, Limited Liability Company or other business entities. When you find the execution of a promissory note might be a reasonable and effective solution to rectify a disproportionate allocation of assets, please contact our office. 1-800-646-3445 or 1-559-665-3456
