A $41 Million Loan Became a $65.7 Million Judgment. The Lease File Decides What Happens Next.
The case
On June 11 a Miami-Dade circuit judge granted a stipulated foreclosure judgment of $65.7 million to an Atlanta-based lender against the owners of two downtown Miami office buildings: a 12-story, 150,530 square foot building at 200 S.E. First Street and the 25-story, 172,292 square foot Courthouse Tower at 44 W. Flagler Street. Principal outstanding was $41.1 million. The rest is interest, default interest, late fees, protective advances and legal costs. Both buildings go to online auction July 20.
How $41 million becomes $65.7 million
Default interest on a commercial mortgage typically runs 4% to 5% above the note rate. On $41 million that adds roughly $2 million a year on top of the contract interest, and it accrues from the first missed payment through the judgment. Add two or three years of unpaid contract interest, the lender's property tax and insurance advances, receiver fees, and attorneys, and a 60% premium over principal is ordinary. Borrowers who let a default run for years because "the lender will negotiate" are watching that number compound. The stipulated judgment here means the borrower agreed to the figure, likely to avoid a deficiency fight.
What sets the price on July 20
Bidders at a foreclosure auction get very little time and very little information. What they can get is the rent roll and, if the receiver has done its job, the leases. The buildings total 322,000 square feet. At a downtown Miami office rent of $40 to $50 per square foot on whatever is occupied, the auction price is a multiple of the in-place income with a heavy discount for the vacancy and for what nobody has been able to verify.
Three things in the lease file move that price by millions. Renewal options below market rent, which cap the upside on the occupied floors. Termination options, which turn a 70% occupied building into a 50% occupied one at the tenant's election. And unpaid landlord obligations, such as improvement allowances the prior owner never funded, which the new owner inherits along with the lease. A bidder who has abstracted all 40 leases bids with confidence. A bidder who has not either overpays or, more commonly, stays away, and the lender ends up with the buildings.
For borrowers in the same position
A stipulated judgment is often the right choice once the equity is gone. Letting the default run without a plan never is. Every month of default interest is money that would have funded a modification. If you are 60 days late on a loan with no refinancing path, the cheapest outcome is usually a deed in lieu negotiated now, with a release of the guaranty in exchange for a clean lease file and a cooperative transition. The lender wants the building and the leases. Hand over both quickly and a guaranty release becomes possible. Two years of fighting takes it off the table.
How a bidder reads 40 leases in a night
Foreclosure auctions give bidders days, not weeks. The bidder who wins is the one who has read the leases, and a 322,000 square foot pair of towers has something like 40 of them, with amendments. A law firm charges $20,000 to $30,000 to abstract that file and takes two weeks. The auction is Monday.
Run the file through an abstraction tool on Friday and by Saturday morning the bidder has a table of every lease: rent, term, options, termination rights, unfunded allowances, co-tenancy, with page references. The renewal option at $28 a foot in a $45 market is on the list. So is the $600,000 improvement allowance the prior owner never paid, which the buyer inherits. That table sets the bid. A bidder without it either overpays by the amount of the surprises or, more often, does not bid, and the lender ends up owning the building. For the lender, the same tool produces the marketing package that gets a real price instead of a credit bid.