Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, SBA Loan. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.

Are the figures here quotes?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.

The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.

How do I know a figure here is right?

Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.

Are the examples real deals?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.

Why do you never say what a typical rate is?

Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.

Can I reuse this content?

Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.

Can a business lender take your house?

Two different routes lead there and they work differently. Neither is fast, and both are shaped by state law you can look up.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 1059 words 5 min read

Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.

Can a business lender take my house if I default?

Not directly, and not quickly. A funder with a lien on business assets has no claim on your home unless you granted one — a mortgage or deed of trust, which is common in SBA lending where there is meaningful equity and rare in short-term advances. Where you signed a personal guarantee, the route runs through a lawsuit, a judgment, a judgment lien recorded against real property you own, and then state-law enforcement, all constrained by your state's homestead exemption and by how the property is titled.

Route one: you pledged it

A consensual lien on your home is a mortgage or deed of trust that you signed, recorded in the county land records. If you did not sign one, this route does not exist. Check your closing package rather than your memory.

Where it appears most often is SBA lending. SBA requirements direct lenders to take available collateral when a loan is not otherwise fully secured, and that can reach equity in a personal residence. The rules and thresholds are set out in SBA policy — see sba.gov — and they change, so check the current version. Short-term advances and unsecured working capital products generally do not involve real property at all.

Route two: a judgment

Without a pledge, a creditor's path to real estate runs through the guarantee. Default, demand, lawsuit, judgment, and then a judgment lien recorded against property you own in that county. What happens after that is state law, and it varies more than almost anything else in this area.

Three variables do most of the work:

The homestead exemption.Every state protects some amount of home equity from creditors, and the amounts range from nominal to very substantial, with acreage and residency conditions in some states. This is the first thing a lawyer in your state will look at.

How the property is titled.In some states, property held by spouses as tenants by the entirety is protected from a creditor of only one spouse. Whether your state recognises it, and whether both of you guaranteed, matters.

The mortgage already on it.A judgment lien sits behind existing recorded mortgages. Where the mortgage plus the exemption exceeds the value, a forced sale returns nothing, which changes what a creditor is likely to bother doing.

The arithmetic a creditor runs before bothering

Illustrative only —the figures are constructed. Your home is worth $420,000, the first mortgage balance is $310,000, a forced sale costs roughly 8% of the price in commission, transfer taxes and closing costs — $33,600 — and your state's homestead exemption protects $75,000 of equity.

A judgment creditor forcing a sale collects $420,000 less $310,000 less $33,600 less $75,000. That is $1,400. Nobody spends a year and a sheriff's sale on $1,400.

Change one input and the answer changes completely. Drop the mortgage to $180,000 and there is $131,400 on the table. Raise the exemption to the amount some states protect and there is nothing on the table at any mortgage balance. This is why the first question a lawyer asks is what the exemption is where you live, and the second is what you owe against the property.

What the lien does while it sits there

A recorded judgment lien is mostly a title problem rather than an eviction risk, and three things follow from that.

You cannot sell cleanly.A buyer's title company will require it paid from the proceeds at closing. The creditor gets paid at your convenience rather than theirs.

You cannot refinance cleanly.A new lender wants first position. The judgment lien has to be paid, subordinated or released, and a judgment creditor has no reason to subordinate.

It may grow.Many states allow statutory interest to run on a judgment. The figure on the recorded document is not necessarily the figure that has to be paid years later.

Four things to check in your own paperwork

Search the county land records for your property. Anything recorded against it is public. Do not rely on remembering what you signed.
Read the guarantee for a further-assurances clause. Some guarantees oblige you to grant additional collateral on request. That is a route to a voluntary lien later, created by a document you already signed.
Check how the deed is titled — sole, joint tenants, tenants in common, tenants by the entirety, or in a trust — and whether both spouses signed the guarantee.
Find the date of the guarantee and the date of the default. Limitation periods run from somewhere, and they are state law.

The variations that change the answer

The house is in a different state from the business.Enforcement happens where the property is. A judgment entered elsewhere generally has to be domesticated there first, and the exemption that applies is the one where the property sits.

The property is held in an entity or a trust.That is not automatically protection, and a transfer made after trouble started is the transaction most likely to be unwound.

You have a home equity line.A judgment lien recorded behind it can cause the line to be frozen or reduced. That removes an option you were counting on long before anyone forecloses on anything.

The guarantee is limited in amount.A cap changes the size of the judgment, and the size of the judgment changes everything downstream of it. Read whether the cap also covers interest, costs and attorney fees, because a cap that excludes them is not much of a cap.

What creditors more commonly do

A recorded judgment lien can simply sit. It attaches to the property, it surfaces when you sell or refinance, and it may accrue statutory interest. Judgments have state-set durations and are often renewable. That is a real consequence that is different in kind from losing the house, and it is the more common one.

What not to do

Transferring the house to a relative, a trust or a new entity after a default has been threatened is the reaction to avoid. Every state has fraudulent transfer or voidable transaction law addressing exactly that, and the consequences of getting it wrong are worse than the judgment.

What to do instead

Find out early what your state's exemption is and how your property is titled, before there is a judgment rather than after. Take the demand letter and the deed to a lawyer licensed in your state for an hour of advice. If a settlement is possible, that assessment is also what tells you what your realistic exposure actually is.

Nothing here is legal advice and nothing here predicts what will happen in your case. Exemptions, judgment liens and enforcement are governed by the law of the state where the property sits, and a lawyer licensed there is the person to give you a real answer.