The SBA Collection Wave: Reading the Note, Guarantee, and Security Agreement Before the Offset Notice

Ashley F. Morgan, Founder | Ashley F. Morgan Law, PC

Ashley F. Morgan is a bankruptcy and debt attorney whose practice centers on government employees, business owners, and high-income households — the clients for whom a collection action carries consequences beyond the balance itself. She founded Ashley F. Morgan Law, PC, and works across creditor negotiations, tax debt resolution, and non-bankruptcy alternatives as well as Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 filings, building asset protection and financial strategy around what a client can actually carry. She practices in Virginia, appears before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and serves clients fluently in English and Spanish.

• Education & Credentials

Ashley is admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ashley serves as President-Elect and a Board Member of the Northern Virginia Bankruptcy Bar Association, sits on the Board of Governors of the Bankruptcy Section of the Virginia State Bar and on the Bankruptcy Section Council of the Virginia Bar Association, and administers the EDVA Group for Consumer Bankruptcy Listserve. She has been named a SuperLawyers Rising Star (2021–2023 and 2026) and to Virginia Business Legal Elite, and has been recognized by Northern Virginia Magazine, Arlington Magazine, and Avvo Client Choice.

• Professional Involvement

Ashley presents continuing legal education programs nationwide on bankruptcy, tax issues, and consumer financial strategy. She belongs to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation, and the American Bar Association Tax Section. Her commentary has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, HuffPost, Yahoo Finance, Credit Karma, and Refinery29.

• Experience

Ashley’s practice runs to debt a client cannot carry and to the options that sit on either side of a filing: creditor negotiations, tax debt resolution, and non-bankruptcy alternatives, alongside Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases. That work is built around government employees, business owners, and high-income households, where asset protection and financial strategy shape the resolution as much as the debt itself. She serves clients from offices in Chantilly and Manassas, Virginia.

Mike Assad, Founder and Bankruptcy Attorney | Law Office of Mike Assad, P.C

Mike Assad is a New Jersey and Pennsylvania bankruptcy attorney who represents individuals and small business owners in financial distress. He has represented individual and corporate debtors—and creditors—in reorganizations and liquidations across the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania. His practice spans consumer Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases, small business reorganizations under Subchapter V of Chapter 11, foreclosure defense, debt consolidation, and student loan discharge litigation. Mike is known for a client-focused approach: the same attorney handles each case from the first call through filing, always reachable by a live person.

• Education & Credentials

Mike earned his J.D. from Widener University Delaware Law School in 2019 and his B.A. from Thomas Edison State University in 2017. During law school, he worked as a research assistant on Smolla and Nimmer on Freedom of Speech, one of the most influential treatises on the First Amendment, and served as treasurer of the Youth Court Society. He is admitted to practice before the Supreme Courts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey; the U.S. District and Bankruptcy Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Pennsylvania and the District of New Jersey; and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mike has helped shape how bankruptcy law works in the region. He currently serves as a Steering Committee Member and Consumer Education Chair of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference (2026–present), previously served on the Local Bankruptcy Rules Committee for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (2024–2025), and served as Third Circuit Leader for the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (2024–2026). He is a lecturer for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute and was named one of Atlantic City Weekly’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2009.

• Professional Involvement

Beyond his bar leadership and CLE lecturing, Mike brings a background in public service to his practice. In 2006, Absecon voters elected him to the local Board of Education—making him one of the youngest elected officials in New Jersey history—and he served seven years in public office, worked for the President of the New Jersey Senate, and advocated on legislation at every level of government. That experience of explaining a complicated system to people who do not work inside it carries directly into his client counseling. He also continues to judge his law school’s biannual alternative dispute resolution competition, which he won as a student.

• Experience

Mike’s practice focuses on helping individuals and small businesses resolve debt they cannot carry—stopping debt collectors, lawsuits, repossessions, foreclosures, and wage garnishments—through Chapter 7, Chapter 13, and Subchapter V filings, as well as student loan discharge actions. When creditors break the rules, he pushes back: in In re Minarik (E.D. Pa., 2025), he recovered $20,000 for a client after an automatic stay violation, and in In re Heasley (E.D. Pa., 2025), he obtained Rule 9011 sanctions against a creditor. Serving clients throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey largely by phone and Zoom, and with offices in Cherry Hill and Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Mike offers hands-on, accessible representation aimed at giving clients a genuine fresh start.

SESSION 1 – Personal Liability on EIDL Loans: The Note, the Guarantee, and What SBA Can Prove | 12:00pm – 1:00pm ET

This session gives practitioners advising struggling businesses and their owners a working framework for the COVID EIDL borrower who arrives holding a Treasury demand letter or facing an unpayable balance. It covers how to determine who is actually liable on the loan, the ;different enforcement tracks; the administrative collection tools Treasury can deploy against an owner without a court order, including the salary offset and eligibility exposure that matter disproportionately to a federal employee and government contractor client base; the realistic resolution options for a business that is still operating versus one that is closing or already closed; and the tax and lien consequences that outlast the loan itself. By the end of this session, attendees will be able to sort an EIDL matter into the right track, identify what SBA can and cannot prove on personal liability, counsel a client on the difference between charge-off, forgiveness, and discharge, and recognize when the answer is a workout, a reorganization, a bankruptcy, or a conversation about what cannot be fixed.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm ET

SESSION 2 – The EIDL Security Agreement: Perfection Defects, Lien Releases, and Workout Leverage | 1:10pm – 2:10pm ET

SBA OIG Report 25-23, issued August 12, 2025, documented what practitioners had suspected: on more than $47 billion in charged-off COVID EIDLs, SBA filed UCC financing statements but never took the further steps Article 9 requires to perfect in borrower deposit accounts, never executed control agreements, ran 88% of charged-off loans through liquidation in an average of three days, failed to report 95% of delinquent obligors to credit bureaus, and referred no delinquent COVID EIDL to the Department of Justice for litigation. This session turns those findings into a working method for evaluating what SBA actually holds against a business client.

It covers the standard EIDL security agreement and the collateral thresholds that govern it, the difference between filing and control under Article 9, how to test a UCC-1 for defects and lapse, and how an undersecured or unperfected SBA position is treated when the business files — bifurcation under § 506(a), avoidance under § 544(a), and sale free and clear under § 363(f). It closes on leverage: the release and subordination mechanics a buyer’s counsel will insist on, the negotiating window that closes when the file moves to Treasury cross-servicing, and what a compromised collateral position is realistically worth at the table.