Here Is How MCA Cases Play Out In Houston.
Contractor files are my most common ('Texas', 'texas') work outside the home base, maybe fifteen last year across Houston and Houston. Project revenue arrives in lumps. MCA debits arrive daily. The mismatch is structural, and funders underwrite like every month looks the same. Here's a Houston crew file from start to finish.
The owner signed 3 advances between jobs, then hit a gap month with $96,000 owed and payroll due Friday. Work trucks encumbered. Tools under UCC filings. A forum clause pointing two states away. He called me Thursday night, which tells you everything about how these files start.
Step zero was triage, not paperwork. Payroll came first. I sequenced the pause so every paycheck cleared, because crews that miss pay quit, and quit crews kill the jobs that fund settlements. People before paper. That order never changes no matter what the file looks like.
Then I read both contracts twice. Reconciliation clauses nobody had invoked. Fee schedules with charges I couldn't match to any line. A confession of judgment in the bigger one. I flagged five separate defenses before we spent a dollar. Reading is the cheapest leverage in this business, and most owners skip it.
Reconciliation demands went out with job schedules attached, proving the gap months. Both funders ignored them. We revoked the ACH authorizations the following week. Debits stopped. The crew stayed intact and finished two jobs during the pause. Finished jobs paid into the war chest instead of the funders.
The aggressive funder sued. We answered with the full stack and served discovery the same month. Their account history had a three-month hole exactly where our gap fell. Cases settle fast when the funder's own records corroborate your story. That one closed at forty-five cents. The patient one took fifty without filing. I've watched good trade files die because the owner hid the gap from me for a month. Tell your lawyer the bad news first. We can't defend surprises we don't know about.
Halfway through, a general contractor held a $30,000 progress payment because he'd heard rumors about the dispute. I got on the phone, walked him through what was actually happening, and the check released the next week. Rumors kill contractors faster than funders do. Managing the grapevine is half the job on trade files, and nobody bills for it because it just looks like talking.
UCC terminations cleared every tool, confirmed by fresh searches. Releases named the owner personally. No jobs lost, no tools seized. One warning: trade files die when crews quit. Protect payroll first, document the gaps, negotiate each funder separately. Working crews fund freedom.