Should You Sign a Personal Loan Guarantee?

We all know that if we don't pay our mortgage, our home can be foreclosed on. We know that if we don't make our car payments, our car will be impounded. But I bet not every small-business owner fully gets that if you sign a personal guarantee for a loan or line of credit and your business ends up defaulting, everything you own can be seized, including your house, wedding rings and, in some states, joint bank accounts. Your wages can be garnisheed, as can your life-insurance policies. Bottom line: anything that looks juicy to the bank is up for grabs.

Every year, millions of business owners agree to put their personal assets on the line. "Even a business with a solid balance sheet may be required to have a personal guarantee," says Therese Franzén, an Atlanta lawyer and chair of the American Bar Association's consumer-financial-services committee. The hope, of course, is that your business will thrive and you'll pay down the loan just as you would a mortgage.(See how to plan for retirement at any age.)

I was a stay-at-home mom when I learned that people in default can include borrowers like my husband, who had never missed a payment but whose bank decided not to renew his company's line of credit. This was in 2006, when lenders were starting to rein in aggressive loans made to small businesses. In the case of my husband, a wholesale supplier whose revenues were declining, the credit line that started at $250,000--and steadily increased for six years--matured, was briefly extended and then was cut at the bank's discretion. The bank FedExed my husband and his former business partner a letter saying they had nine days to pay back a seven-figure sum.

We felt as if we'd been punched in the stomach. But with the help of family and friends, we marshaled the resources to fight to keep our only sizable asset, our home.

Among the legal oddities I learned along the way: banks usually require business partners to agree to something called joint and several liability, which may sound nice and fair but in reality means the lender may pursue just one of the partners for the entire debt. I also found out I had to sign a spousal consent only once, no matter how many times the line of credit increased.

If we could redo it all, we would try to negotiate and structure the guarantee differently. "There are other bargaining chips in lieu of or to reduce the personal guarantee that banks may not go out of their way to reveal," says Michele Dean, senior vice president at Bethpage Federal Credit Union in Bethpage, N.Y. These chips include pledging accounts receivable and asking for a guarantee that gets smaller each year as you build a credit history.

So what happened to us? Three years, two judges, one magistrate and many a lawyer later, our case was settled--the same surreal week the bank was bought by another bank. Now that our debt has been paid and the liens on our house have been lifted, we can focus on making a living as a team, enjoying our family and paying off our looming legal bills. I recently came upon a Benjamin Franklin quote that rings true: "He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing." Just make sure that if you do borrow, you know what's at stake.

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