Payment due: Deferments end for SBA pandemic loans

Nov. 15—Some pandemic loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration don't have to be paid back if the borrower met or meets certain conditions — forgivable loans through the federal Payroll Protection Program, specifically.

Others do, however, namely loans made available through SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, and they're coming due soon. Angela Burton, director of the SBA Lower Rio Grande Valley District office, said her team has created a new webinar to help borrowers navigate the EIDL online payment process.

The invitation to register for the first Zoom webinar went out Nov. 10 and it's scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. on Nov. 17, after which the webinars will be scheduled weekly, she said. Burton said the webinar will show borrowers how to find their account balances and payment due dates in the SBA Capital Access Financial System and set up a CAFS account. The webinar will essentially cover getting access to the system and setting up electronic payments via pay.gov, she said.

Register at https://bit.ly/3g62WMw or visit the SBA district office website at sba.gov/tx/lrgv.

"We just want to give everyone the best advantage, get folks to start thinking about it, and give them the easiest route to it," Burton said.

SBA will send out reminder emails when a payment is due but will not send out statements, she said.

The government provided a total of 30 months of deferment on principal and interest payment from the date EIDL loans were issued, though borrowers who took out the loans in June 2020, as many of them did, will be required to start making payments in December, Burton said.

The most recent deferment, at the direction of SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, was announced in March. The EIDL program stopped accepting new applications as of Jan. 1, and as of May 6 is no longer processing loan-increase requests or requests for reconsideration of previously declined loan applications.

Approximately 2,000 COVID EIDL loans will come due in December in the four counties of the Rio Grande Valley: Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr and Willacy, Burton said, noting that some borrowers have already started paying back their loans.

"This particular relief program is not free money," she said. "That's a common question."