When a funder will not give you a payoff letter

Two tracks, run at the same time. One is a statutory request with a deadline. The other is arithmetic you can do yourself tonight.

Track one: the written request, escalated properly

The statutory request

Under the uniform text of UCC § 9-210, a debtor may send the secured party a request for an accounting, a request regarding a statement of account, or a request regarding a list of collateral. The secured party must comply within 14 days after receipt.

Two points that matter here.

A funder structured as a buyer of receivables rather than a lender is still within this. Article 9 defines "secured party" to include a person to whom accounts or payment intangibles have been sold, so a purchase structure does not remove the obligation. The same definition is why they were able to file a UCC-1 in the first place.

A request regarding a statement of account is the useful form: you send your own understanding of the amount owed, and the secured party must approve or correct it. That reverses the burden. Instead of asking them to produce a number, you are asking them to confirm or correct yours.

Failure to comply carries consequences under § 9-625, including liability for loss caused by the failure. As always, your state's enacted version of Article 9 governs the section numbering and the detail.

Track two: compute the figure yourself

You can build a defensible number from two documents.

Build the supporting schedule while you are at it: every debit, with date and amount, taken from statements. That schedule is what makes your figure something other than an assertion, and it is what you attach to the § 9-210 request.

Why they might not be responding

Not always obstruction. Common causes: the account has been transferred to another servicer and nobody told you; the file is with outside collections and the servicer no longer produces letters; the entity has been acquired; the request went to someone who does not handle payoffs; or there is an internal dispute about the balance that nobody wants to put in writing.

Which is why the first escalation should ask a different question: "Who currently services this account, and what is the correct address for a payoff request?" Sometimes that resolves it in a day.

What not to do

If you do decide to pay your computed figure — for instance because a closing cannot wait — send it with a written tender that states the amount, how it was computed, that it is tendered in full satisfaction, and what you require in return: a paid-in-full acknowledgement and the UCC termination. Whether a tender of that kind has any legal effect depends entirely on state law and on the facts, so this is a step to take with advice, not instead of it.

The sequence

1. Day 0. Written request to the contractual notice address, with a response date, delivered by a method producing proof.
2. Day 0. Build your own figure and supporting schedule from bank statements.
3. Day 7. Second written request, escalated, asking who services the account.
4. Day 10. Formal request regarding a statement of account under your state's version of § 9-210, attaching your computed figure and schedule, citing the 14-day period.
5. Day 24. If nothing: the failure to respond is itself a fact you can document, and at this point the question is one for a lawyer, particularly if a closing is waiting on it.

What to have ready

The agreement, with the notice provision and fee schedule marked. Complete bank statements covering the whole term. Your computed figure with the schedule behind it. Proof of delivery for every request. And the file number of the UCC filing, so that whatever you eventually resolve can be checked against the public record afterwards.

Article 9 is state law and your state's enactment governs; whether a purchase-structured agreement falls within a particular provision can turn on how it is drafted. This describes the general mechanism and is not legal advice.