I have a mortgage on a commercial property I am trying to sell. I am not getting any good offers (after almost 2 years) except 1 but the buyer can not get the financing. My attorney and I came up with a plan to seller finance it to him while he invests into the empty lot to raise the income and then refinance to pay us in full in about 1 year.

The plan is beneficial in everyway to the bank: They still have the first lien, I will set aside part of his downpayment (app 50k, enough for over 12 months) to make the payments if he defaults so there are two people making sure the payments are made, and he will be building a store on an empty lot of the property to raise the value further.

My attorney says however that the bank will not allow this because of the due on sale clause and will not work with me, even though they can’t loose. I think it would be foolish for the bank not to let me do this. This makes my options to either do it anyway being that we don’t expect the bank will not find out unless the payments are not made (and we will have our "insurence" fund set aside, or to discuss it with them and if they say no I may have ruined any chances of doing it.

So do you think they would go along with this? Now of course it is more complicated then that and I am very well aware of the risks so I don’t need advice on that but do you think the bank would ignore what makes sense and just follow the policies or do you think they may listen? I live in the bronx if it helps. Thanks