As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll on businesses in Pennsylvania and beyond, now is a good opportunity to discuss one of the most oppressive tools that commercial lenders have in their arsenal for defaulting borrowers—a warrant of attorney, which is a contractual provision that allows such lenders the ability to enter a judgment of record against their tenants, borrowers and guarantors, as the case may be, by simply filing a complaint alleging a default under the written lease or loan documents and then demanding a confessed judgment of an amount certain.

In Pennsylvania, the general rule is that “a warrant of attorney to confess judgment may not be exercised twice for the same debt.”