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Three court writs. An ATO debt in default. A credit score of 200. Four weeks before a private lender’s grace period expired and repayments began. Every bank that looked at this file had already said no.
We didn’t.
A business owner came to FRONT holding a short-term private loan secured against their property, with a three-month capitalised interest period quietly building behind it. By the time they reached us, the clock had almost run out: four weeks until repayments started, and default the moment they didn’t.
That alone would be enough to sink most files. This one had more stacked against it:
• Three unpaid court writs
• ATO debt in default
• Several outstanding unsecured creditors
• Limited remaining equity in the property
• A credit score of 200
Every mainstream lender they’d approached had already walked away. There was no equity to clear the debts and cover the costs, no time to negotiate everything that needed negotiating, and a private lender who could move to enforce the moment the interest period expired. On paper, the deal didn’t exist.
This wasn’t a credit-score problem. It was a sequencing problem, running against a hard deadline. The court writs had to come off before refinance was even possible. The ATO debt had to be resolved. The creditors had to be settled. And every one of those moves had to happen before the private lender’s patience ran out.
There was no room for a slow process, and none for a mistake either.
Normally, the equity in a property has to stretch across all of it: the payout figure, the legal debts, the ATO liability, the creditor settlements, the costs. Here, it didn’t come close. Something had to give, and it wasn’t going to be the client’s home.
We renegotiated the payout, not just the file. The private lender’s payout figure wasn’t fixed as far as we were concerned. We pushed, and got it down by $50,000, the single move that made the entire deal possible.
We kept the pressure off. The biggest threat wasn’t the debt, it was the private lender running out of patience and enforcing before refinance settled. We stayed in constant contact, keeping them informed and keeping the runway open until the deal was done.
We cleared every barrier, one by one. Unsecured creditors negotiated and settled. Court judgements paid out in full. ATO debt resolved. Every reason a new lender could say no, removed before they had the chance to say it.
We rebuilt the deal around the client, not the client around the deal. With equity already stretched to the limit, we restructured the costs and terms until the numbers worked, rather than asking them to find money they didn't have.
A new 30-year first mortgage. Every debt cleared, the court writs, the ATO liability, the creditors, gone. Default avoided. The property protected. The business kept running. A complete financial reset, inside thirty days.
Deals like this aren't solved by finding another loan. They're solved by understanding the problem, rebuilding the structure and executing every step in the right order. When legal judgements, tax debt, creditor negotiations and an immovable deadline collide, the challenge isn't simply assessing risk, it's creating a pathway to settlement.
Three disciplines shaped the outcome:
Execution. Four weeks left no room for delay. Every day mattered, and every milestone had to be achieved at exactly the right time.
Relationships. A $50,000 reduction in a payout figure didn't come from a policy or a process. It came from trusted relationships, commercial negotiation and conversations built on credibility.
Strategy. Resolving court writs, settling the ATO debt, negotiating with unsecured creditors and managing the existing lender all had to happen in the right sequence. The refinance was only possible because everything around it was rebuilt first.
This is what complex lending looks like: not selecting a product, but solving a problem. Behind every successful settlement is a series of high-stakes negotiations, strategic decisions and carefully sequenced actions, all working towards one outcome: keeping a client in their home.
This article is intended as general information only and should not be relied upon as financial, credit, tax or legal advice. Every situation is different. Before making any financial or commercial decision, seek independent professional advice that takes your individual circumstances into account.