Live Oak Bank Reviews 

The team at Live Oak Bank recently helped me with an SBA loan for a business acquisition and they were amazing to work with. They communicated well through the entire process and helped me to navigate acquiring a new business, allowing me to expand into a new market. I would highly recommend them.

I’d like to thank Earnest Fitzhugh and the Live Oak Bank team for an excellent experience securing an Express Loan for capital improvements. Earnest’s clarity, responsiveness, and attention to detail made the process smooth and efficient. We truly appreciated the professionalism throughout.

As a newer business owner, we had some big changes occur that led me to reach out for the possibility of an SBA loan. The team ant Live Oak was awesome to work with from start to finish. Drew and Chris had excellent explanations and patience with me, and I also had some communication with Lindsay who was so kind and reassuring. They worked efficiently and swiftly, and we got it closed quicker than expected. Thank you all again!

My husband and I were searching for a lender to help us refinance our pet care business, and after being turned away or brushed off by several traditional banks, we were starting to feel stuck. On a whim, we found Live Oak Bank through ChatGPT and saw they were highly recommended for businesses in the pet care industry, so we reached out.

From the very first conversation with Claire Cronin, everything changed. Claire was absolutely fantastic. She was knowledgeable, responsive, supportive, and genuinely invested in helping us succeed. She, along with Heather, Jacqueline, and the rest of the Live Oak team, made what can be an overwhelming process feel simple, organized, and doable.

Not only were we able to secure an SBA loan to refinance our existing business, but we were also able to purchase a new building at the same time, something that previously felt out of reach. From start to finish, this was one of the most pleasant and seamless business transactions we have ever experienced. The team made sure we fully understood every step, answered every question, and truly went above and beyond for us.

We cannot recommend Live Oak Bank enough. Their expertise in the pet care space, combined with their professionalism and personal support, made all the difference. We look forward to working with them again as we grow and move toward opening our second location.

I recently got an SBA loan through Live Oak Bank, and the experience was excellent. Kara was my initial contact and made the document submission process smooth and easy. Sean, my closing agent, had great communication and kept everything on track.

I’ve applied for SBA loans before and they always seemed complicated, but Live Oak Bank made it simple and fast. Funny enough, I actually asked ChatGPT who the best bank was for an SBA loan, and it suggested Live Oak Bank — AI wasn’t wrong!

Big thanks to Kara and Sean for making the process so seamless. Highly recommend Live Oak Bank for SBA loans.

Caroline was patient and helpful, once we got everything together, and there was a lot, we got our loan approved quickly.

I opened an account with Live Oak solely to receive an SBA loan disbursement. From the beginning, their online system wouldn’t let me complete the application. I had to call in, reapply multiple times, and eventually go through a manual process just to get an account opened.

A couple months later, they abruptly closed my account three days after warning me I had two weeks to fund it—so my SBA disbursement bounced. When I tried to fix it, their online portal still didn’t work, and this time their support team was unresponsive and dismissive. Instead of solving problems, they sent copy-and-paste template replies and left me chasing them for updates.

This entire experience was frustrating, slow, and careless. If they can’t competently handle something as basic as opening and maintaining a deposit account, I shudder to think how they’d treat a borrower in an actual lending relationship. I would not recommend Live Oak.

The Loan specialist officer Brittany Vangritis was
phenomenal in every respect. Her response quick, her knowledge immense, going out of the way to help us. Just made the experience so smooth, easy and great.
Plus her support system above and beyond speaks volume of the institution she represents.

They trick you into an SBA loan. Just go straight to the SBA if needed.

Do not trust. I have been battling for years to get them to remove a lien they put on my house even though they were paid by the SBA after my bankruptcy, and even though they took the profits from a house they told us we had to sell. They made their money off the loan from SBA, and then-some with the enormously high interest rate, and “recommended” I use a law firm that ended up costing me over $350,000 to do the deal. “Luckily” they were there to give me a line of credit to cover that expense, which also costs me more than the monthly loan payment. Unfortunately, I am not the only Service-Disabled Veteran that they took advantage of. There are others who lost everything as well. In fact, SBA had to change the rules for how much people money one had to put down to ensure that they had the proper financial stability to acquire a company through the SBA 7a program.

Never do a personal guarantee. We felt that we had no choice and a few years later, we had to sell our home and they took all the profit from the sale and we were homeless for a period of time. My husband took out the SBA backed loan through Live Oak Bank and they made him add me as a personal guarantor. Needless to say, COVID hit, business declined, and we filed for bankruptcy and lost everything. The saddest part is, my husband was not the only Service- Disabled Veteran that they took advantage of. There are many more that took the bait and lost everything.

Loving everything but with no debit card, zelle or checks it has been very hard to pay people and was unable to open a new Credit card for this account so to the loan.

How did you expect a business to use the money in the account?

Couldn't even be bothered to try to get any of our information correct. Right from the first distribution trying to originate the loan the employee didn't get emails correct, waited days to close the loop. Once we got email addresses corrected they again didn't get names correct on the paperwork. Sloppy work all the way around, wouldn't do business with again.

Closing was done last minute, when it didn't have to be. Documents that had been submitted 4+ weeks in advance are being kicked back last minute for updates when they could have been kicked back weeks before. Live Oak forces me to use their checking account as a part of the loan, yet offers me no way to deposit checks. Live Oak cancels my debit card just after I had set it up as the payment method at dozens of vendors. Live forces me to order new checks just days after I order checks for my new account. Live Oak offers no consideration for any of these failures.

My loan agent communicated daily, gave great instructions and was extremely responsive when I had questions. Great customer service!

It was fast and easy to get my loan needs met far ahead of closing. I will definitely come back for future loan needs.

We just closed on our second storage facility acquisition using a SBA loan through Live Oak Bank. Everyone was great to work to with and we hope to use them for a new deal in the future. All interactions felt both personal and professional. Response time was very quick.

The constant discussion with my loan officer and finding ways to get the deal done.

From day one Nick Padlo and the others at Live Oak were very communicative, responsive, and, above all, extremely supportive during my business acquisition process.

Dixie and Chris were also very supportive and helpful in getting my loan through underwriting and closing, respectively.

All the team members associated with our loan were very much in tune with our needs and desires. They were relational not transactional. I felt like they really cared to help us get the loan we needed unlike other financial institutions. I felt like it was a good family affair. I felt supported and heard.