It was from the moment the broken roof trusses were discovered that BBVA Compass and McGee worked in a seemingly calculated manor to conceal the fact that on April 25, 2007 BBVA Compass increased their first lien to $1,400,000 from the SBA.
It was after the loans were increased when Dilia was unexpectedly called into a meeting by two BBVA Compass Senior V.P. loan officers she had never met before: Burt Messick and Michael Monterrubio.
It was in that long and heated meeting that Messick divulged that BBVA Compass never ordered the structural engineer report and she later learned they never ordered the second appraisal she was charged for either. BBVA Compass had a $2.6million project with an old $2.3million appraised value and no evaluation of the structure. Not good for a bankers career.
Messick and Monterrubio wanted to shift their failure to perform their due diligence onto Dilia to fix their problems. They tried an intimidation tactic where they demanded she agree to,
“hand over the $250,000 city grant funds to pay down Compass’s first lien plus $50,000 cash up front.”
She was shocked and it was a request that would be intimidating for any small business.
BBVA Compass, a premiere SBA lender, wanted to seize without disclosure to the SBA the same grant funds that were required of Dilia by the SBA to be used for her working capital and mortgage payments? Their gruff demand was clearly a blatant attempt to force her start-up business into predestined failure out of the gate. She declined. Her answer was NO.
Dilia later received an email from the BBVA Compass SBA Lending Division notifying her to provide only the $50,000 contribution to cover her 20% of the project cost increase, which she did. Her borrower’s contribution was by then $510,000.
In the email BBVA Compass did not mention the $250,000 Messick and Monterrubio wanted her to turn over. McGee moved on his end to get the SBA’s approval for the loan increases through a “327 Stamp Action,” an SBA formality to request a change to the Authorization.
In the 327 and more than 14 documents
Robert D. McGee, President of
Southwestern Business Financing Corporation
MISLEADS the SBA about the project
- Construction costs increase = $220,000
(actual increase $471,000) - BBVA Compass first lien (Third Party Lender Loan) = $1,150,000
(actual lien = $1,400,000) - Total Project Costs = $2,300,000
(actual total = $2,600,000) - Borrower’s Contribution (Dilia) = $460,000
(actual contribution = $510,000) - Borrower’s Contribution Percentage = 20%
The 327 was a blatant lie to the SBA about this 504 loan. It was later discovered that this 327 concealed more than $300,000 of unreported cash to the SBA; while the woman-owned small business was left in the dark.
Construction was completed by October 2007 and the subject of the grant funds never came up again. She had successfully cleared all of the conditions of the SBA 504 loan and everything was ready to complete the SBA funding process.
However, it turned out that even though she declined to hand-over the $250,000 city grant funds; Messick and Monterrubio internally went ahead and underwrote the loan increases with the condition that she would and without her written consent.
It appears from email strings that BBVA Compass took calculated steps to make sure there was no written or signed agreement for the BBVA loan condition
The BBVA Compass Deed of Trust requires written consent. No written agreement would perhaps prevent any trace of evidence that they planned to seize the only verified source of working capital for her start-up business.
According to an email McGee sent to BBVA Compass regarding the $250,000 city grant;
“Since it’ll be gone before we fund”
the side deal would work and the SBA would never be the wiser about the “material change”. The woman-owned business would never know what hit her.
In January 2008 Dilia was formally awarded the grant from the City for completing the historic renovation project. It was an exciting and thrilling moment because it meant she could officially get her business truly started, hiring staff and hosting those one of a kind weddings she had dreamed of.
Then, Messick popped up again.
He knew somehow, without notice from her, that she received the grant. He wanted it. He demanded it. He confessed he didn’t care what the SBA knew or didn’t know. Her original loan officer from the CDC instructed her not to give up her working capital. She was stuck. Only one of three things could happen:
- If she gave him the money she feared she would default on her SBA guarantee
- If she didn’t give him the money he threatened to default her on the BBVA Compass loan
- If she gave him the money her start-up business would have no working capital or a way to make the first mortgage payment.
She couldn’t win. It was do or die.
In a panic, Dilia tried calling her original loan officer from the CDC for help. However, it was too late SBFC President, Bob McGee had mysteriously issued a company-wide gag order restricting any employees from speaking with her and even her loan officer was prohibited from assisting her.
The entire situation had her terrified and by that time, she had $510,000 of her family’s life savings invested in the Inspirador project that was going terrifyingly awry.
In the midst of this crazy meltdown, Dilia was summoned to the Mayor’s office to discuss the city’s interest to use her property for their new $74 million City Hall project. Apparently, Inspirador was the perfect location to run a public pedestrian breezeway from old town to the new city hall. The entire City Hall project had been designed with this north/south alignment through Inspirador in mind and approval from City Council to allow the budget would hinge on this design idea.
Turns out this old property had more interested parties than she could have ever realized.
During this time in 2008, BBVA Compass and McGee demonstrated a relentless desire to take ownership of the property, seize the grant funds and leave her start-up business in a position of intentional default.
BBVA Compass was creating a foreclosure where one was not needed. When she didn’t “hand over the $250,000 grant funds,” McGee was in a quandary. He had already lied to the SBA over and over again. In order to save himself, McGee pulled the SBA funding at the final hour leaving BBVA Compass holding the bag for both loans.
McGee secretly used that time to clean up his mess and he very busily manufactured a malicious cover-up scheme that would forever ban her from qualifying for an SBA loan ever again — just in case.
Since McGee never funded his portion of the loan one would think his interest in the property would dissipate with that as well. Not so with McGee, he found ways to keep his hands in the pot along with BBVA Compass for all those years.
In her efforts to obtain her SBA loan file Dilia submitted a formal request through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)only to find out that it had been cleverly destroyed by McGee when he secretly wrote a letter on her behalf to cancel the loan!
Dilia called his offices directly to obtain a copy only to receive a certified letter from McGee explaining that the files were his property to protect and he would release them only if “ordered by a valid subpoena”.
McGee conveniently never removed his unfunded liens of $579,000 and encumbrances from the property title. In 2011 Dilia was forced to sue McGee to: remove the unfunded liens from her property title and finally obtain a copy of her “protected” SBA loan file
McGee was receiving annual notices from the property insurance company as an “additional insured”. By September, 2011 BBVA Compass secured an updated property appraisal for themselves and McGee (3 years after McGee pulled funding).
For all these years Dilia was never privy to the long string of banker shenanigans being played by BBVA Compass and McGee. They concealed every bit of it from her and the SBA. No one would have been the wiser had her small business failed.
However, business was doing well, well enough that for almost five years she was making those mortgage payments of $12,850.00 in good faith. McGee had saved himself, left BBVA Compass to fend for themselves and Dilia got tagged with a Hobson’s Choice:
“Take a 3-year balloon on the second lien and prove you can make the monthly payments or we’re taking ownership of the property”
What she also didn’t know was that the their secret cover-up scheme to ban her from qualifying for all of time from an SBA 504 loan gave them assurance that no other banker in the market would ever touch the loan for a refinance.
Every calculated step was BBVA Compass and McGee’s personal guarantee that they would eventually gain ownership of the property.
BBVA Compass Bank in fact did take ownership of the property on April 17, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. and forced the viable and popular Inspirador business to CLOSE unnecessarily.
She was making regular monthly payments of $12,850 and had paid more than $650,000 in principal and interest and $510,000 of her families life savings — all in good faith. However, BBVA Compass wanted nothing short of her paying off McGee’s portion of the loan and gaining ownership of the property. They REFUSED to term out the loan she proved she could service. A civil litigation is pending.
Now that BBVA Compass OWNS the INSPIRADOR the public aftermath and local media frenzy that took place after has become an even bigger tragedy. Now the dreams of many more good and decent people have been crushed at the hands of BBVA Compass Bank.
*If you or someone you know has had an unfair experience or inexplicable experience with an SBA 504 Loan please contact us at: kellerian1963@gmail.com
SBA Fraud Alert 
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