Welcome back to Deal Nightmare Edition 3, where I share real problems from deal life and how we solved them. Deal life starts when the contract is signed, not when the business is listed, and that is exactly when the scariest surprises tend to show up. This month, in honour of Halloween, a true story about a ghost who almost haunted a closing. 📖 Story Recap Picture a large management buyout, roughly three quarters of the way to closing. Financing was lined up and the documents were nearly final. 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. Our client confirmed it wasn’t him. The bank wasn’t satisfied with his word. So we went to the source, contacting the judgment creditor’s lawyer. After some back and forth, we confirmed the debtor was a different person and obtained a clearance letter for the lender. The ghost was gone, and the deal moved forward. 🎯 1. Core Paradox Being innocent is not the same as being cleared. Your client knows he isn’t the judgment debtor, but the lender can’t close on a borrower’s say so. A registered judgment can cloud the bank’s security. The proof that satisfies a lender has to come from outside the deal, from the creditor who holds the judgment. ⚠️ 2. Why This Threatens Brokers These hits usually surface 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 actually wrong. Every day spent untangling a mistaken identity is a day the deal can cool. Lenders get nervous, buyers start second guessing, and momentum you worked hard to build starts to leak away. 💡 3. The Solution Don’t argue with the lender. Get ahead of it by contacting the judgment creditor’s lawyer, providing enough detail to distinguish your client, and asking for written confirmation that he is not their debtor. A clearance letter from the judgment creditor’s side gives the lender something it can rely on and put on file. It turns a frightening search result into a closed issue. 📢 Action Item for Brokers Encourage your 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, don’t 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.