Loan

With its towering pine trees and par-71 golf course, Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill has served as an enclave for South Jersey's elite going back almost a century. But the club's future is now in doubt as a long-running dispute involving former members, a local bank, and millions in outstanding debt heads to bankruptcy court. The club filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. District Court in Camden this week against debts owed to more than 100 creditors, including $10.7 million claimed by Sun National Bank in Vineland, N.J., according to court filings.

A three-year, $66.2 million construction loan has been arranged through Wells Fargo Bank for Pearl Properties' Granary luxury multifamily project at 20th and Callowhill Streets in Philadelphia. The loan was arranged by the New Jersey office of commercial real estate adviser HFF Inc., which announced the financing. When completed in 2013, the Granary will have 227 one- and two-bedroom apartments averaging 842 square feet each, 20,654 square feet of ground-level retail space and underground parking.

The Chester County Commissioners on Tuesday approved giving a $1 million below-market-rate loan to UB Foods U.S. to further encourage the firm to establish a plant in Oxford Borough. Officials from UB Foods, which makes Keebler snacks, told borough residents last Thursday that the firm intends to buy the former Pepsico Unibev plant, which has been empty for three years. The commissioner's action follows a recommendation by the county's Industrial Development Authority, which actually is making the loan.

The Abington school board took less than a minute to borrow $3 million last week, voting without discussion to borrow the money from CoreStates Capital Markets Group. "And not a person here knows what it's for," grumbled Joseph Polya, a persistent board critic who attended the Tuesday night meeting. Actually, the board spelled out its plans for the loan as far back as June. It will go for repairs and improvements throughout the district, including purchase of computers, buses and windows, and for repairs to roofs, tennis courts and sidewalks.

Philadelphia Sheriff John Green said bar owner Sidney Booker gave him an $11,000 personal loan and then made him an offer he had to refuse. "He wanted a job, and in exchange I did not have to pay back the note," recalled Green. "I told him I don't sell jobs, and after that, he stopped speaking to me," added Green, who took over the 290-member Sheriff's Department in January. Green made his comments after reporters discovered that Booker had filed two suits in Small Claims Court alleging that Green failed to repay a total of $11,000 worth of loans that he was supposed to start repaying on Dec. 1. Booker, owner of the Stinger Bar on Broad Street near Belfield, said he would have no comment until after the suit is heard on Tuesday.

The son of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, whose political-consulting business is already under FBI investigation, has been sued for failing to repay a $56,000 bank loan. Chaka Fattah Jr. received the loan Dec. 30 from United Bank, apparently a refinancing of another United loan from earlier in the year, bank documents show. But he failed to make any payments, according to the suit, and the bank filed its collection case just 12 days after the FBI served search warrants at a law office where Fattah Jr. worked and at his apartment in the Residences at the Ritz Carlton in Center City.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has begun to take complaints about student loans, it said Monday. The bureau will assist all borrowers experiencing problems taking out or repaying a private loan or managing one in default and referred to a debt collector. Complaints may be submitted through 1-855-411-2372; at www.consumerfinance.gov ; faxed at 1-855-237-2392, or mailed to the bureau at P.O. Box 4503, Iowa City, Iowa 52244.    - Alan J. Heavens

A Chester County agency is suing a Philadelphia eye doctor in an effort to recover a $180,000 loan it made to the physician four years ago to open a health-care center in downtown West Chester. The center, which was to be a multidisciplinary practice owned and operated by minority physicians, never opened, and the building at 16 E. Gay St. stands empty. The loan was made to Neal E. Hall by the county Office of Housing and Community Development using federal Community Development Block Grant money.

Freeholder Joseph J. Milano agreed yesterday to call off his six-week-old feud with the Camden County sewerage authority and cast the deciding vote for the expansion of the regional sewer system. Milano, a maverick Democrat who joined with the three Republican freeholders in stalling a $39 million loan for the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA), decided to switch his position after a late afternoon meeting with authority officials Herman B. Engelbert and Moses Jackson.

The Yardley Borough Council will hold a public hearing before deciding whether to guarantee a $1.8 million loan to pay for the recent expansion of a waste-water treatment plant. In a unanimous 7-0 vote, the council declined the Morrisville Sewer Authority's "push to make a hasty decision" Wednesday night and scheduled a public hearing instead. The council did vote to advertise an ordinance to guarantee the loan. "Just because we have voted to advertise the proposed ordinance does not guarantee that we will pass it. But it does provide us with some time to make sense of all of this," council President Susan Taylor said.

A pack of avaricious wolves that has been circling Harrisburg is salivating to feed on the working poor with a bill that would legalize exploitative payday loans that could carry interest rates in the triple digits. Dressed in the clothing of consumer protection, the bill strips away Pennsylvania's long-held and strongly enforced protections against predatory short-term loans. Sponsored by Rep. Chris Ross (R., Chester), the legislation would drop-kick the state's 24 percent annual-percentage-rate cap. As a result, individuals with marginal incomes, including truck drivers, nurses, and clerks, could be pushed into a cycle of debt.

RBS Citizens Financial Group Inc., which owns Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, said it is expanding its private student loans business to all 48 contiguous states from the 12 now served by Citizens and Charter One, another bank owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The move comes amid increased attention to the heavy debt loads of college students. A Citizens spokeswoman said the bank's student loan business had grown 50 percent in the past year, but declined to say how much Citizens has in student loans outstanding.

Let JPMorgan Chase and the other big Wall Street banks risk precious billions on high-stakes trading desks. "Banks aren't lending. We make loans," says Michael Forman, Philadelphia lawyer-turned-boss of Franklin Square Capital Partners. Of course some banks are lending — to college students, credit card users, even corporations. But Forman's point is clear: With banks hobbled by record low loan rates for blue-chip borrowers, and more careful regulation, independent firms like his are raising piles of investor cash and crowding into the business loan markets, seeking midsize debtors with steady cash flow but blemished credit ratings, who can be counted on to pay attractive rates, as long as they stay in business.

With its towering pine trees and par-71 golf course, Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill has served as an enclave for South Jersey's elite going back almost a century. But the club's future is now in doubt as a long-running dispute involving former members, a local bank, and millions in outstanding debt heads to bankruptcy court. The club filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. District Court in Camden this week against debts owed to more than 100 creditors, including $10.7 million claimed by Sun National Bank in Vineland, N.J., according to court filings.

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill Tuesday to preserve low interest rates for millions of college students' loans, as the two parties engaged in election-year choreography aimed at showing each is the better protector of families in today's rugged economy. The 52-45 vote to begin debating the legislation fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to proceed and stalled work on an effort both parties expect will ultimately produce a compromise, probably soon.

PHH Mortgage Corp., Mount Laurel, said it will provided end-to-end mortgage origination and loan servicing to HSBC Bank USA. As part of the deal, PHH is expected to take on about 400 HSBC employees who work at a mortgage operation in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. The loan-servicing component covers HSBC's portfolio of $15.5 billion of prime mortgage loans and $36.6 billion of loans that HSBC services for third-party investors. — Harold Brubaker

Pete Alfeche doesn't recall exactly how he first encountered CashNetUSA, the online affiliate of the payday lender Cash America. He believes he got an e-mail pitching a quick loan. But Alfeche, a Havertown insurance adjuster, is convinced of one thing: As much as he believed he needed the $250 he borrowed that day five years ago, taking the high-cost, short-term loan was a mistake he'd like to help protect others from making. Within a year, he had paid nearly $2,000 in finance charges, much of it to repeatedly roll over the initial loan.

WASHINGTON - Republicans defied a veto threat as the House voted Friday to prevent federal loan costs from doubling for millions of college students. The vote gave the GOP a momentary election-year triumph on a bill that has become enmeshed in partisan battles over the economy, women's issues, and President Obama's health-care overhaul. The measure's 215-195 passage was largely symbolic because the package is going nowhere in the Democratic-dominated Senate. Both parties agree students' interest costs should not rise, but they are clashing along a familiar fault line over how to cover the $6 billion tab: Republicans want spending cuts and Democrats want higher revenues.

It took six years, political pressure, and an online petition signed by 80,000 in a matter of days. But Thursday, Key Bank finally forgave the student loan for a Marlton student who died from a traumatic brain injury in 2006. "They said, ‘Effective immediately the remaining balance is forgiven,' " said Ryan Bryski, whose brother Christopher died after a fall. In a phone call Wednesday evening, an employee from Key Bank told the Bryskis, "We don't want to put you through any more undue hardship," Ryan said.