CRE Sponsor Due Diligence ← Agents Directory

Sponsor and guarantor due diligence for commercial real estate loans

SponsorCheck reads each principal’s personal financial statement, schedule of real estate owned, tax returns, K-1s and entity documents, reconciles them against each other and against your sponsor standards, and hands your credit team a sponsor review where every figure cites its source page. Stated liquidity stays marked as stated until your team verifies it.

Covers borrowers, key principals and guarantors on acquisition, bridge, construction and refinance loans. Runs beside your loan origination system and screening tools.

Review a recent sponsor

PFS to SREO Property count, debt and equity reconciled line by line

Stated vs verified Liquidity is never treated as verified until your team attaches the statements

No name-only hits Every potential match goes to a person to disposition

99%+ Decision accuracy in MightyBot’s flagship production lending deployment

What is sponsor due diligence in CRE lending?

Sponsor due diligence is the review of the people and entities behind a commercial real estate loan: their liquidity, net worth, other debts and guarantees, track record, ownership chain and public-record history. SponsorCheck runs that review as an AI agent on the MightyBot platform, using your sponsor standards as the rules.

The sponsor’s documents, checked against each other

A sponsor’s strength is usually argued from two documents that were prepared at different times for different purposes. The personal financial statement says what the principal owns and owes. The schedule of real estate owned lists the properties and the debt on them. When they disagree, the difference is often a guarantee someone forgot to disclose.

SponsorCheck reconciles them, traces the entity chain from the borrower to each principal, reads global cash flow inputs from tax returns and K-1s, and records sanctions, registry and public-record lookups with their source and retrieval time. Your credit team decides what the findings mean.

Sponsor review: three-principal multifamily sponsor Illustrative example

Principals: 3 guarantors
Properties: 14 on SREO
Result: Refer: 2 flags, 1 missing

Contingent liabilities Flag

SREO shows a $9.4M recourse loan on a retail property guaranteed by Principal B. The PFS lists no contingent liabilities.
SREO p.2 row 9 · PFS p.3 · Sponsor policy 3.4
Sanctions screen Flag

Potential match for Principal C on name only. Date of birth and address not on the list entry. Unconfirmed, routed for disposition.
OFAC SDN list, fictional entry #00000 · retrieved 09/22/2026 10:41 ET
PFS vs real estate schedule Pass

Property count, debt and equity tie within $150K for Principals A and C.
PFS p.2 · SREO p.1-2
Liquidity vs committed equity Missing

Stated liquidity of $7.8M covers the 1.5x equity test. Brokerage statements not attached, so the figure is unverified.
PFS p.1 · Sponsor policy 2.1
Entity status Pass

Borrowing entity and managing member active and in good standing in the state of formation.
State entity registry, retrieved 09/22 10:38 ET

Fictional sponsor shown for illustration. Your sponsor standards, lists and data sources drive the real review.

How SponsorCheck works

01
Each principal’s documents come in

Personal financial statements, schedules of real estate owned, tax returns, K-1s, operating agreements and organizational charts, for every borrower, key principal and guarantor. SponsorCheck classifies them and assigns each to the right person or entity.
02
The figures are reconciled

Real estate on the PFS is tied to the schedule by property count, debt and equity. Recourse debt and guarantees on the schedule are matched against disclosed contingent liabilities. Tax returns and K-1s supply the global cash flow inputs.
03
The entity chain and records are checked

Legal names and ownership percentages are traced from the borrowing entity to each principal. Sanctions, state entity registry and the litigation, lien and bankruptcy sources you configure run with the source and retrieval time recorded.
04
Your credit team gets a sponsor review

Flags, items for review and missing statements, each linked to its source. Potential matches wait for a person to disposition. Liquidity stays marked unverified until the statements are attached.

Sponsor checks

What is on a CRE sponsor and guarantor due diligence checklist?

The checks below are the defaults. Each one is a plain-English policy you can edit, including the minimums, the multiples and the data sources.

Input	What SponsorCheck checks	Output
Personal financial statement	Liquidity and net worth against your minimums and against committed equity; statement date against your freshness window	Sponsor strength summary with each figure marked stated or verified
Schedule of real estate owned	Property count, debt and equity reconciled to the PFS; occupancy and debt maturities listed; experience by property type	Reconciliation exceptions and a track record summary
Guarantees and recourse debt	Guarantees found on the real estate schedule, K-1s and loan documents matched against contingent liabilities on the PFS	Undisclosed contingent liabilities, with the page each was found on
Tax returns and K-1s	Recurring income and distributions from each partnership and company, for your global cash flow analysis	Global cash flow inputs by principal
Operating agreements and organizational chart	Legal names consistent across documents; ownership percentages traced from the borrower to each principal	Entity chain and the beneficial owners your procedures must identify
Sanctions, registry and public-record sources	Potential matches recorded with list, entry, source and retrieval time; state entity status; litigation, lien and bankruptcy sources you configure	Items for a person to disposition; a name match alone is never a finding

Sponsor strength is usually taken from the sponsor’s own paperwork.

The PFS and the real estate schedule are prepared by the sponsor, often months apart. The review that decides whether to believe them is usually a spreadsheet and a set of manual searches.

Guarantees go undisclosed

A principal lists no contingent liabilities, but the real estate schedule shows recourse debt on three properties. Nobody lines the two up until a covenant or a default makes it matter.

Stated liquidity becomes verified liquidity

A number copied from the PFS moves into the credit memo. By committee it reads as fact, though no bank or brokerage statement was ever attached.

Screening hits are handled by memory

A name-only match is cleared or escalated depending on who ran the search, and the reasoning sits in an email. Loan review cannot see what was checked or when.

Why it is different

A sponsor review with the reconciliation shown

SponsorCheck does not replace your credit analysts or your screening provider. It reads and reconciles the sponsor’s documents so their time goes to judgment.

Capability	Manual sponsor review	SponsorCheck
PFS and real estate schedule	Retyped and eyeballed	Reconciled on property count, debt and equity
Contingent liabilities	Taken as disclosed on the PFS	Guarantees found elsewhere matched against the PFS
Liquidity	Stated figure used in the memo	Marked unverified until statements are attached
Entity chain	Drawn from the org chart	Traced from the borrower to each principal
Screening hits	Resolved by whoever ran the search	Recorded with source and time, routed to a person
Audit record	A spreadsheet and screenshots	A review with every figure, source and policy version

Commercial real estate agents

Agents for the rest of the CRE loan life cycle

Deal screening and underwriting

Closing and loan boarding

Servicing and portfolio

How SponsorCheck connects to the MightyBot platform.

SponsorCheck runs on the MightyBot platform: plain-English credit policies, document extraction with page citations, and an audit trail for every decision.

Use caseCRE LendingRent rolls, operating statements and appraisals into DSCR, debt yield and LTV under your policy.Use caseConstruction Draw ReviewsDraw packet review, inspection reconciliation, lien waivers, and policy checks.Use caseCovenant MonitoringContinuous borrower reporting, covenant calculations, and breach detection.Use caseFinancial SpreadingNormalize borrower financials for underwriting, covenant monitoring, and risk evaluation.ControlPolicy EnginePlain-English policies compiled into deterministic execution paths.EvidenceData EngineDocument intelligence, canonical extraction, and source evidence pointers.

Run SponsorCheck on a sponsor you already approved.

We are opening design partner slots for CRE lenders and debt funds. Send the sponsor package from a recent deal and your sponsor standards; we return the review so you can compare it with the one your team wrote.

Become a design partner View all agents

What does sponsor and guarantor due diligence cover on a CRE loan?

It answers two questions: can the people behind the deal support it, and are they who the documents say they are. On the first, the OCC's Commercial Real Estate Lending handbook says "The bank should obtain appropriate financial information on the borrower(s) and guarantor(s), as applicable, including income, liquidity, cash flow, contingent liabilities, and other relevant information to support sound underwriting."

The handbook asks for a global view, not a single statement: "Cash flows should be assessed on a global basis. Global cash-flow analyses can be complex and may require integrating cash flows from business financial statements, tax returns, and Schedule K-1 forms for multiple partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations." It also warns that "A guarantor's unpledged assets should not be considered a substitute for project equity."

Other guarantees are the figure most often left off. The assessment "should include consideration of the total number and amount of guarantees currently extended to all lenders, to evaluate whether the guarantor has the financial capacity to fulfill the contingent claims that exist." A schedule of real estate owned that lists recourse debt the personal financial statement omits is exactly that gap.

How does SponsorCheck review a sponsor?

SponsorCheck runs on the MightyBot platform. Your sponsor standards, such as minimum liquidity and net worth, liquidity as a multiple of committed equity, and the experience you require by property type, are written as plain-English policies. The agent extracts the personal financial statement, the schedule of real estate owned, tax returns, K-1s and entity documents for each principal and guarantor.

It then reconciles them. Property count, debt and equity on the real estate schedule are tied to the real estate section of the PFS. Recourse debt and guarantees on the schedule are checked against contingent liabilities disclosed on the PFS. Legal names and ownership percentages are traced through the entity chain from borrower to each principal, and the track record is read from the properties the sponsor actually lists.

Stated liquidity is reported as stated. The handbook says "Guarantor liquidity should be verified by the bank," so SponsorCheck marks each liquidity figure as unverified until your team attaches the bank or brokerage statements, and shows which statements are still needed.

How should sanctions hits and beneficial ownership be handled?

OFAC's guidance on assessing name matches says "organizations should follow their own sanctions compliance policies and procedures for investigating potential matches," and notes that "Many potential matches identified through screening are false positives." To resolve one, it says to "compare all of the details in the OFAC listing with the information available to you." SponsorCheck records each potential match with the list, the entry, the source and the retrieval time, and routes it to a person to disposition. A name match alone is never reported as a finding.

For entity borrowers, the FinCEN customer due diligence rule at 31 CFR 1010.230 requires covered financial institutions "to establish and maintain written procedures that are reasonably designed to identify and verify beneficial owners of legal entity customers." SponsorCheck maps the ownership chain from the organizational documents so the people your procedures require you to identify are listed before the file reaches compliance.

State entity registry status, and any litigation, lien or bankruptcy sources your team uses, run the same way: each result carries its source and retrieval time, and your staff decide what it means for the credit.

What to look for in sponsor and guarantor due diligence software

Use these questions when you compare tools for reviewing CRE sponsors, borrowers and guarantors.

Does it reconcile the PFS to the real estate schedule?Property count, debt and equity should tie between the two, with every difference listed rather than averaged away.
Does it find undisclosed contingent liabilities?Guarantees and recourse debt on the real estate schedule, K-1s or loan documents should be matched against what the PFS discloses.
Does it keep stated and verified liquidity apart?A figure copied from a PFS is not verified liquidity. The tool should say which statements are still needed.
Does it trace the entity chain?Legal names and ownership percentages should be followed from the borrowing entity to each principal and guarantor.
How does it treat a sanctions or public-record hit?Each potential match should carry its list, source and retrieval time and go to a person to disposition. A name match alone should never be a finding.
Can you show the work to loan review?Every figure and result should open the page or record it came from, under the policy version applied.

Spreadsheet review, a screening tool and a policy-driven sponsor review compared

Criterion	Spreadsheet review	Standalone screening tool	SponsorCheck sponsor review
PFS and real estate schedule	Retyped and compared by hand.	Not read.	Extracted and reconciled on property count, debt and equity.
Contingent liabilities	Taken from the PFS as disclosed.	Not checked.	Guarantees found elsewhere in the package matched against the PFS.
Liquidity	Stated figure used in the memo.	Not checked.	Marked unverified until statements are attached.
Sanctions and records	Searched by hand, results pasted in.	Alerts with match scores.	Potential matches with source and retrieval time, routed to a person.
Entity chain	Drawn from the organizational chart.	Names screened one at a time.	Traced from borrower to principals with names checked across documents.
Fits best when	Few sponsors, simple structures.	Screening is the only gap.	Sponsors hold many properties and entities, and loan review asks for the reconciliation.

Sources

Sources and verification

Regulatory references were read in the original documents and last verified September 23, 2026. Production figures come from the named MightyBot deployment.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is on a CRE sponsor due diligence checklist?

The core items are the personal financial statement and schedule of real estate owned for each principal and guarantor, tax returns and K-1s, entity documents and an organizational chart, and sanctions, entity registry and public-record searches. The review checks liquidity and net worth against your minimums, reconciles the PFS to the real estate schedule, lists contingent liabilities and traces ownership. SponsorCheck runs each item against your written standards.

How do lenders analyze a guarantor on a commercial real estate loan?

Lenders look at the guarantor’s liquidity, net worth, global cash flow and contingent liabilities, including every other guarantee extended to other lenders, and whether stated liquidity can be verified. SponsorCheck extracts those figures from the guarantor’s documents, reconciles them, and shows which ones are still unverified.

How do you verify a personal financial statement for a loan?

Compare it with independent documents: bank and brokerage statements for liquidity, the schedule of real estate owned and loan statements for real estate and debt, and tax returns and K-1s for income. SponsorCheck does the comparison and lists the differences. It marks liquidity as unverified until your team attaches the statements, because a figure copied from the PFS is not verification.

What is a schedule of real estate owned analysis?

It reviews each property the sponsor lists: ownership share, value, debt, occupancy, maturity and whether the debt is recourse. It shows experience by property type and exposure the PFS may not disclose. SponsorCheck ties the schedule to the PFS and flags recourse debt missing from the PFS’s contingent liabilities.

Can AI do KYC for commercial real estate borrowers?

AI can do the reading and recording: extract the entity chain from organizational documents, check legal names across the package, and run sanctions and registry lookups with the source and retrieval time recorded. The judgment stays with people. SponsorCheck never treats a name match alone as a finding; each potential match goes to your team to disposition under your own procedures.

Does SponsorCheck replace our sanctions screening provider?

No. SponsorCheck can use the sources and screening tools you already have, and it records what each returned. What it adds is the reconciliation around them: the PFS against the real estate schedule, guarantees against disclosures, and the ownership chain against every document in the file.

How does SponsorCheck find undisclosed contingent liabilities?

It looks for guarantees and recourse debt wherever they appear, including the real estate schedule, K-1s and loan documents in the package, and matches them against the contingent liabilities disclosed on the PFS. Anything found in one place and missing from the other is flagged with both page references.

What is a schedule of real estate owned?

A schedule of real estate owned, or SREO, lists every property a sponsor or guarantor owns, with ownership share, value, debt, lender, maturity and cash flow. Lenders use it to judge experience and contingent exposure, and to check it against the personal financial statement, where the same properties and debt should appear.

What does a design partner pilot include?

A read-only run on sponsor packages from a few recent deals under your sponsor standards. You get the sponsor reviews, the missing-statement requests and a side-by-side view against the reviews your team wrote, before anything goes live.