About Petra
Quick facts
Company
Petra Loan Servicing Corp
What we do
Loan servicing and loan administration for private real estate lenders
Founded by
Joe Dillamore (CEO), previously built a private lending business in the UK
Backed by
Faes & Co, bringing nearly two decades of private lending experience
Headquarters
25 Draper St, Suite A, Greenville, SC 29611
Licensing
NMLS #2649059 · CA DRE #02265074
Coverage
Loan Admin: nationwide. Full Loan Servicing: 45 states + D.C. (all except AZ, ID, MN, NV, SD)
Sister service
Petra Title — automated title monitoring (petratitle.com)
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Petra — from loan servicing basics to working with us as a lender or borrower.
About Petra
Petra is a loan servicing company built specifically for private lenders in US real estate finance — the lenders who fund fix-and-flip projects, rental properties, bridge loans, and construction. After a loan is funded, Petra takes over the administration: collecting payments, issuing statements, tracking taxes and insurance, managing draws and payoffs, and keeping the loan compliant with its agreements. Lenders stay focused on originating; borrowers get fast, accurate service.
Private lending has grown dramatically more complex over the last decade — Petra has seen over 100 different capital stack and loan term permutations — but most servicers still run on legacy software built for consumer mortgages. The result is payment errors, multi-day delays, and borrower frustration; around half of private lenders use a servicer only because their capital providers require it. Petra was founded by people who built lending businesses themselves and built its platform from the ground up for private lending, automating the manual work so servicing is fast, accurate, and genuinely useful rather than a box-ticking exercise.
Three things. Speed: a payoff statement that takes legacy servicers 2–3 days takes Petra under two hours, and often minutes. A purpose-built platform: Petra's proprietary system was designed for private lending's complexity — multi-lender loans, reserves, escrows, draws, extensions, partial payoffs, and ARMs are serviced as standard, not as exceptions. Partnership: Petra's team has founder-level lending experience and acts on it — proactive borrower outreach has cut one lender's late payments by 30%, and optional title, insurance, and tax tracking protects the collateral behind every loan.
Loan Servicing 101
A loan servicer manages a loan after it has been funded. That includes collecting and allocating payments, issuing borrower and lender statements, tracking interest accruals, monitoring taxes and insurance on the collateral, managing escrows and reserves, processing draw disbursements on construction loans, handling extensions and modifications, producing payoff statements, and managing reconveyance when the loan is repaid. The servicer is the operational back office of a loan from funding through payoff.
Two core reasons. First, independent oversight: capital providers — the funds, banks, and investors behind private lenders — want an independent party verifying balances and handling money movement. Third-party servicing is often a requirement for raising institutional capital. Second, focus: servicing is detail-heavy, deadline-driven work. Outsourcing it frees a lending team to spend its time originating new loans rather than chasing payments and building statements.
With loan servicing ("done for you"), the servicer takes over borrower-facing operations at closing: collecting ACH payments, communicating with borrowers, chasing delinquencies, and processing payoffs through to reconveyance. With loan administration ("done with you"), the lender keeps the borrower relationship and payment handling in-house, and uses the servicer's platform for the bookkeeping: loan calculations, balance tracking, and borrower/lender statements — at Petra, white-labelled with the lender's own branding. Petra offers both, and lenders can mix tiers across their portfolio.
Petra services private/business-purpose real estate loans, including fix-and-flip and bridge loans, rental (DSCR-style) loans, and construction loans with draw schedules. The platform handles interest-only and amortizing structures, adjustable rates (ARMs), multi-lender participations, reserves, escrows, prepayments, partial payoffs, extension and modification terms, and default interest — over 100 capital stack and loan term permutations serviced to date.
No. Petra is a third-party servicer only. Petra does not originate loans, does not lend its own capital, and does not compete with its lender clients. Borrowers are always customers of their lender; Petra administers the loan on the lender's behalf.
Services & Pricing
Two core tiers plus optional protections. Loan Admin (from $25 per loan/month): loan onboarding and verification, the real-time platform with 360° loan view, monthly borrower and lender statements (white-labelled), reporting, and same-day support — the lender keeps payments and borrower communication in-house. Loan Servicing (from $45 per loan/month): everything in Loan Admin, plus ACH payment collection and distribution, high-touch borrower outreach, delinquency management, and payoff through reconveyance. Optional add-ons: title tracking, insurance tracking, tax tracking, escrow administration, ARM administration, additional lender records for participated loans, and trust accounting.
Base pricing (January 2026): Loan Admin $25 per loan/month; Loan Servicing $45 per loan/month. Optional add-ons per month: additional lender on a loan $10 (Admin) / $15 (Servicing); title tracking $10 per property; insurance tracking $10 per property; tax tracking $5 per property; escrows $10 per escrow; ARMs $5 per loan. Deboarding a loan is a one-time $75 (plus $50 if escrows are included). There are no onboarding fees and no late fees. Pricing is subject to change — contact lenders@petraservicing.com for the current schedule.
On serviced loans, certain transaction costs are payable by the borrower: loan statements such as a payoff statement, verification of mortgage, or loan history ($30); outbound wires such as draw disbursements ($45); returned ACH payments, e.g. for insufficient funds ($45); and payoff administration, which varies by county. Borrowers are not charged for onboarding and Petra does not add late fees of its own.
Loan Admin is available nationwide. Full Loan Servicing is available in 45 states plus Washington, D.C. — everywhere except Arizona, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, and South Dakota — with licensing expansion toward full nationwide coverage planned. Petra Loan Servicing Corp operates under NMLS #2649059 and CA DRE #02265074.
No portfolio minimum applies to core servicing — Petra works with lenders from a handful of loans to institutional-scale portfolios. (Petra Title has a one-property minimum.) If you're an emerging lender, servicing from loan one is often what makes institutional capital available later, since capital providers expect independent servicing to already be in place.
For Lenders — Getting Started
Loans are onboarded through Petra's online onboarding form, which pre-fills data wherever possible — a new loan can be submitted in minutes. Petra then independently verifies the loan against the underlying loan documents before it goes live, so the balances, rates, and terms being serviced are the ones actually in the agreement. There are no onboarding fees.
Yes. Petra regularly boards existing portfolios transferring from other servicers or from in-house servicing. Petra reconciles each loan's history — payments, accruals, and balances — against the loan documents during boarding so the transferred ledger ties out from day one, and borrowers receive clear transfer communication.
Every boarded loan is checked against its documents: principal and funding amounts, interest rate and accrual method, payment schedule, fees, reserves and escrows, security details, and lender/participant allocations. Independent verification is part of what makes Petra's servicing useful to capital providers — the record they see has been checked by a third party, not just copied from the lender's spreadsheet.
Submitting a loan takes minutes on the platform. Verification and go-live are typically fast because the process is largely automated; complex or transferred loans take as long as the document reconciliation requires. Your servicing contact will give you a timeline for portfolio transfers.
For Lenders — Day-to-Day
The lender portal is a real-time view of your whole portfolio: search and review any loan with a 360° loan view (balances, transaction history, statements, security, and status), onboard new loans, submit servicing actions such as draw notifications, loan updates, and payoff requests, and download statements and reports — no email back-and-forth required.
On the Loan Servicing tier, borrower payments are collected by ACH on the loan's payment schedule. Before each payment, the borrower receives an email with a clear, accurate statement showing exactly what will be collected. Collected funds are reconciled and distributed to the lender (and any co-lenders) with supporting statements.
Same day. NSF and payment-return notifications go out the same day Petra learns of them, so problems are addressed immediately rather than discovered weeks later in a report — and Petra's servicing team begins borrower outreach the next business day.
Monthly borrower and lender statements, plus monthly portfolio and delinquency reports covering loan performance across your book. Everything is also available on-demand in the portal — real-time balances, transaction history, and downloadable reports — and Petra can support capital-provider reporting requirements.
Yes. Borrowers and capital partners can be given controlled, read-only access to statements and portfolio data on the platform — transparency for the people who need it, without exposing servicing controls. Independent, third-party visibility of this kind is often exactly what institutional capital providers require.
Every lender has direct access to a servicing specialist — via Slack, live chat, email, or phone. Requests received by 2pm ET get a same-business-day response.
Yes, trust accounting is available as an optional service. Borrower funds are handled through trust accounts with double-entry reconciliation between bank activity and the loan ledger, giving lenders and their capital providers a clean, auditable money trail.
For Lenders — Complex Loan Structures
Yes — multi-lender loans are serviced as standard. Petra tracks each participant's funded position, splits interest and principal collections according to the participation structure, and produces per-lender statements and distributions. Additional lenders on a loan are $10–15 per lender per month depending on tier.
Lenders submit draw notifications through the portal; Petra records the draw against the loan, updates the funded balance and interest accrual, and disburses funds to the borrower (outbound wires are $45, payable by the borrower). Interest calculations reflect the actual funded balance over time.
Yes. Petra administers escrows (e.g. for taxes and insurance) at $10 per escrow per month, and tracks interest reserves and other holdbacks — drawing payments from reserve where the loan is structured that way, and reporting reserve balances to the lender as they deplete.
Yes. ARM administration is a $5 per loan/month add-on: rate changes are applied on schedule, accruals recalculated, and borrowers notified with updated statements.
All serviced as standard. Petra applies extension terms and fee schedules, restates accruals on modification, and correctly allocates prepayments and partial payoffs — including default interest where the loan agreement provides for it. Loan changes are verified against the documents before taking effect, the same way onboarding is.
Payoffs & Loan Exits
Payoff statements requested by 2pm ET are delivered the same business day — typically within two hours, and often within minutes. Legacy servicers commonly take 1–3 days, which stalls refinances and sales; Petra's speed means exits close on schedule. Payoff statements are $30, payable by the borrower.
Petra confirms receipt of the payoff funds, reconciles final interest and fees to the day, distributes proceeds to the lender (and any participants), and manages reconveyance / release of the security so the borrower's title is cleared. Payoff administration costs vary by county recording requirements.
Deboarding is removing a loan from Petra's servicing other than by payoff — for example, if a loan is sold to a buyer who services elsewhere. It's a one-time $75 per loan (plus $50 where escrows have to be transferred). There are no exit penalties beyond that flat fee.
Delinquency & Performance
Prevention first: borrowers receive a clear emailed statement several days before each ACH payment is due, which removes the confusion that causes many missed payments. When a payment does fail, Petra's on-shore servicing team begins proactive outreach — calls and emails — the next business day, resolving issues before they become defaults. One lender saw late payments fall 30% after moving to Petra.
The lender is notified the same day the return or miss is identified. Petra's team contacts the borrower promptly to resolve the cause — often an NSF or a bank change — and re-collects where possible. Persistent delinquency is escalated per the lender's instructions, and every step is visible in the loan's record and the monthly delinquency report.
Yes. Where the loan agreement provides for default interest, Petra applies and accrues it per the documents, keeps it distinctly identified in the loan ledger, and reflects it accurately in payoff statements.
Title, Insurance & Tax Tracking
Petra Title (petratitle.com) is automated, continuous title monitoring for the properties securing your loans — $10 per property per month, one-property minimum, 10+ risk event types monitored. It alerts you to: third-party foreclosure activity; involuntary liens (construction, judgment, mechanic's); additional loan recordings against your collateral; deed transfers that may signal fraud; borrower bankruptcy filings; and crucial property events like disasters, value decreases, and MLS listings. You can use Petra Title with or without Petra servicing.
Because your title search is only accurate on the day it ran. New debt can be recorded against your collateral days after closing; ownership can transfer without your knowledge; a mechanic's lien or a bankruptcy filing can cloud your position for months before you'd otherwise find out. Continuous monitoring surfaces these events within days, while you can still act.
For $10 per property per month, Petra verifies hazard insurance on the collateral and monitors it for lapses, cancellations, and renewals — with force-placed coverage applied when required — so a loan is never silently uninsured.
For $5 per property per month, Petra monitors property tax status for delinquencies and payment issues. Because tax liens take priority over a lender's deed of trust, catching a delinquency early protects the seniority of your security.
For Borrowers
Your loan is still with your lender; Petra is the servicing company that administers it on their behalf. You'll receive your statements from Petra, your payments will be collected by Petra, and when you have a question about your balance, payment, or payoff, Petra is who you contact: hello@petraservicing.com or (864) 483-7168.
Most borrowers pay by automatic ACH from the bank account they authorized: Petra debits the scheduled amount on the due date, and you'll receive an email with a clear statement before each payment showing exactly what will be collected and how it's calculated. If you need to change your bank account or discuss another payment method, contact Petra before your next due date.
Contact Petra as early as you can — before the due date if possible. If an ACH payment is returned (for example, for insufficient funds), a $45 return fee applies under most loan agreements and Petra's team will reach out promptly to resolve it and re-collect. Talking to us early is always the best move; our team works with you to fix issues before they become defaults reported to your lender.
Request it from Petra (hello@petraservicing.com or through your loan's payment portal). Requests received by 2pm ET are turned around the same business day, usually within two hours. A payoff statement costs $30 and shows the exact amount, including per-diem interest, needed to pay your loan off on a given date.
Petra confirms the funds, applies them to close out the loan, and manages the reconveyance — the release of the lender's security interest — so the lien on your property is cleared with the county. Recording timelines vary by county; Petra handles the process and any county recording costs are covered by the payoff administration fee.
Yes — borrowers get access to their statements and loan information on Petra's platform, and every monthly email includes a full, accurate statement. If you need a loan history or verification of mortgage (for example, for a refinance), Petra can produce one ($30).
Petra Loan Servicing: hello@petraservicing.com · (864) 483-7168 · 25 Draper St, Suite A, Greenville, SC 29611. For anything about the loan's terms themselves (rate, extension, new borrowing), your lender is the decision-maker — Petra administers the loan they set.
Compliance, Licensing & Trust
Yes. Petra Loan Servicing Corp holds NMLS #2649059 and CA DRE #02265074, and is licensed for loan servicing in the states where licensing is required — currently covering 45 states plus D.C. for full servicing, with expansion underway.
Petra's platform runs on SOC-audited infrastructure with server-side access controls: every lender, borrower, and investor account can only reach its own records, and money-moving actions are restricted to Petra's servicing team. Bank details are handled through regulated ACH payment channels.
An independent servicer verifies each loan against its documents, maintains a double-entry ledger of every transaction, handles funds through trust accounting, and reports without the conflicts of self-servicing. That third-party assurance is what lets capital providers extend more leverage with confidence — which is why many require it, and why lenders often adopt servicing as a step toward institutional capital.
Glossary
Key terms explained
Loan servicing
The administration of a loan after funding: payment collection, statements, escrow/tax/insurance tracking, draws, payoffs, and compliance.
Loan administration
A lighter service where the lender keeps payments and borrower contact in-house and the platform handles calculations, tracking, and statements.
Private lender
A non-bank lender funding business-purpose real estate loans (fix-and-flip, bridge, rental, construction), typically faster and more flexible than banks.
Capital provider
The fund, bank, or investors supplying a private lender’s lending capital; often requires independent loan servicing.
ACH
Automated Clearing House, the US bank-to-bank network used to collect borrower payments electronically.
NSF / payment return
A payment that fails, e.g. for non-sufficient funds; triggers a return fee and servicer outreach.
Payoff statement
The document stating the exact amount, including per-diem interest, required to fully repay a loan on a given date.
Per-diem interest
The daily interest amount used to adjust a payoff figure for the actual payoff date.
Verification of Mortgage (VoM)
A servicer-issued statement of a loan’s payment history, often required for a refinance.
Reconveyance
The release of the lender’s security interest (deed of trust/mortgage) after payoff, clearing the lien from title.
Escrow
Funds collected with payments and held to pay obligations like property taxes or insurance on the borrower’s behalf.
Interest reserve
Loan proceeds held back at closing to fund future interest payments, common in construction and bridge loans.
Draw
A disbursement of construction/renovation funds against a loan’s holdback as work progresses.
Multi-lender / participated loan
A loan funded by more than one lender, each holding a share of the balance and receiving a share of collections.
ARM (adjustable-rate mortgage)
A loan whose interest rate changes on a schedule; the servicer applies rate changes and recalculates accruals.
Default interest
A higher interest rate applied under the loan agreement while the loan is in default.
Force-placed insurance
Coverage the lender arranges (at borrower cost) when the borrower’s hazard insurance lapses.
Involuntary lien
A lien recorded against a property without the owner’s consent, such as a mechanic’s, judgment, or tax lien.
Trust account
A segregated bank account where a servicer holds funds belonging to borrowers/lenders, reconciled independently of company funds.
Deboarding
Transferring a loan off a servicer’s platform other than by payoff, e.g. after a loan sale.
Fix-and-flip loan
A short-term loan to purchase and renovate a property for resale.
Bridge loan
A short-term loan covering the gap until a sale or refinance.
DSCR loan
A rental-property loan underwritten on the property’s debt service coverage ratio rather than the borrower’s income.
