Anne Arundel Today

Lenders are using "vulture tactics" to prey on borrowers hard struck by the COVID-19 pandemic's economic impact, a Linthicum hotel general manager said in a recent letter to his congressional representative.

The lenders hovering over the pandemic-distressed properties "are well within their legal rights," Hilton Garden Inn BWI general manager Kenneth White said in his April 2 letter to U.S. Rep. Charles Albert "Dutch" Ruppersberger (D-MD).

In a copy of the two-page letter obtained by Anne Arundel Today, White told Ruppersberger the lenders' scheme is "unconscionable from a moral perspective and stand starkly against the principles that we share here in the United States."

"Frankly, to take advantage of this crisis for the sake of better returns for some New York hedge fund strikes me as unAmerican," White continued in his letter. "The negative impact to hotel owners and their employees of these vulture tactics will be long lasting."

White urged Ruppersberger to join with other members of congress, the Federal Reserve and other regulatory agencies "to address this situation before hotels across this country are mercilessly foreclosed on due to no fault of their own." Among other things, White called for an 18-month moratorium on foreclosure proceedings to allow hotel owners "time they will need to come up with reasonable solutions and strategies."

The $2 trillion CARES Act passed by Congress late last month provides some foreclosure relief, mostly for family-owned properties.

In addition, some states have set up foreclosure moratoriums and stays, often covering small and large properties from lenders asset seizure when payments aren't made during the pandemic.

Maryland is one of those states, thanks to a March 18 administrative order issued by the Maryland Court of Appeals that suspended evictions and foreclosures for the duration of the Covid-19 emergency. However, that order generally covers residential foreclosures and foreclosures of right to redeem after a tax sale.

Larger properties received some protection in an interagency statement issued March 22 by the Federal Reserve, FDIC and other regulatory agencies that encouraged the nation's banks to work proactively with borrowers hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The agencies encourage financial institutions to work prudently with borrowers who are or may be unable to meet their contractual payment obligations because of the effects of COVID-19," the statement said. "The agencies view loan modification programs as positive actions that can mitigate adverse effects on borrowers due to COVID-19. The agencies will not criticize institutions for working with borrowers and will not direct supervised institutions to automatically categorize all COVID-19 related loan modifications as troubled debt restructurings (TDRs)."

White called the interagency statement "undoubtedly a step in the right direction" but said not all borrowers have loans from FDIC-insured banks.

"However, billions of dollars of hotel loans in our country come from unregulated non-banks such as hedge funds and other investment funds," White said. "Since the Federal Reserve and the FDIC have no direct oversight of these firms, they are unlikely to follow the previously mentioned guidance. They are more likely to take a different approach: the use of vulture tactics to extract as much 'value' out of the hotel as possible without any regard for the current crisis or the hotel employees or hotel owners involved."

Those vulture tactics include accelerating the foreclosure process to gather as many COVID-19-distressed properties as possible, using "small technical ways" to rush loan defaults, denying borrowers existing escrowed funds and slowing reimbursements on collateral, White said.

Anne Arundel Today reached out to 20 lenders and banks. Only two responded, saying they were not authorized to speak to the press.