Dental Practice Loan Taking Too Long? Here's What to Do

In Summary

Conventional dental-specific lenders typically close in 30–45 days from a complete application; SBA 7(a) loans run 45–90+ days, with Preferred Lender Program lenders often at the faster end of that range.
Being past your expected window doesn't automatically mean something is wrong — but delays almost never resolve without active intervention from the buyer.
The most important first step is diagnosing why the loan is delayed, because the cause determines the right response.
"Waiting for approval" and "stalled in underwriting" are two different situations that require two different actions.
SBA loans take longer by design — the SBA itself must review and authorize the guarantee — so a longer timeline is structural, not a warning sign.

A Delayed Approval Is Common — But It Rarely Fixes Itself

Dental practice loan approval timelines: Conventional dental-specific lenders typically close in 30–45 days from a complete application submission. SBA 7(a) loans run 45–90+ days, with lenders holding SBA Preferred Lender Program (PLP) status often landing toward the faster end of that range because they can approve the guarantee in-house rather than waiting for SBA review.

If you're reading this, you're probably somewhere past that window — or close enough to your closing date that the silence from your lender has started to feel loud. That's a completely normal place to be. Most first-time buyers hit a point where the timeline they were given stops matching the calendar in front of them, and the instinct is to either panic or wait and hope. Neither tends to move things forward.

The more useful instinct is to diagnose before you act.

There's an important distinction worth drawing here: waiting for approval and stalled in underwriting look identical from the outside — both involve silence and uncertainty — but they require different responses. Waiting for approval often means the file is progressing normally and you're simply at the longer end of a standard range. Stalled in underwriting usually means something specific has flagged: a document gap, a valuation question, a title issue, or a condition the underwriter needs resolved before moving forward. One calls for patience; the other calls for action.

SBA timelines also work differently by design. Unlike a conventional loan — where the lender's credit committee is the final decision-maker — an SBA 7(a) loan requires the SBA itself to authorize the loan guarantee, separate from the lender's own approval process. When an SBA loan runs to 75 or even 90 days, that's often the process working as intended, not a signal that something has gone wrong with your deal.

What tends to separate buyers who close from buyers who lose the deal isn't the loan itself — it's whether they stay actively engaged when the process slows down. The sections that follow give you a framework for figuring out exactly where your loan stands, what's causing the delay, and what you can do about it today.

Diagnosing the Delay: The Four Most Common Causes

Most delays trace back to one of four root causes — and three of them are fully within your ability to address. The first step is figuring out which one you're dealing with.

A simple question to your loan officer can orient you immediately: "Is the file currently in underwriting, or are you still waiting on documents?" The answer tells you whether the delay is on your side of the table or theirs — and that distinction determines everything about what you do next.

Cause 1: Documentation Gaps

This is the most common delay trigger by a significant margin. Underwriters move into a holding pattern when tax returns are missing, when P&L statements don't reconcile with the practice's earlier representations, or when the seller hasn't provided complete financials. As commercial lending specialists note, incomplete financial statements force underwriters to either chase missing data or place the file on hold entirely — and a faster lender can step in and take the deal.

Your move: ask your loan officer for a written list of every outstanding item, then set a 48-hour response target for each one. Don't wait for the lender to follow up — own the checklist.

Cause 2: Appraisal Gap

When the lender's independent valuation comes in below the agreed purchase price, the lender will only finance up to the appraised value — leaving a gap you'd need to cover in cash or resolve through renegotiation. On an $800,000 purchase with a $720,000 appraisal, for example, your cash requirement at closing can effectively double.

This isn't a processing delay — it's a structural problem that requires a different response entirely. What happens when a bank appraisal comes in below the asking price is covered in detail in the next section, including your four options for moving forward.

Cause 3: Buyer Profile Questions

A credit score below 700, a high student debt load, or limited post-graduation clinical experience can trigger additional underwriting scrutiny. These don't automatically kill a deal — but they often require a letter of explanation, supplemental documentation, or a compensating factor like a larger liquidity reserve. What lenders actually evaluate when financing a dental practice goes beyond credit score alone, which is worth understanding if your profile has any of these characteristics.

Your move: ask your loan officer directly whether any conditions have been issued on your file. If so, respond to each one in writing and keep a record.

Cause 4: Lender-Side Bottleneck

Not all lenders process dental deals at the same speed. Generalist lenders unfamiliar with dental goodwill valuations often take longer because they're learning the deal structure as they go. According to dental practice financing specialists, using the wrong lender can delay the process, cost more in fees, and in some cases hinder your ability to close at all. SBA Preferred Lender Program lenders with dedicated dental desks can process the same file 30–45 days faster than a generalist SBA lender.

Your move: ask your loan officer how many dental practice acquisitions their team has closed in the past 12 months. The answer is telling.

Cause	What's Happening	Your Move
Documentation gaps	Underwriter is waiting on missing or inconsistent financials	Request a written outstanding-items list; target 48-hour turnaround on each
Appraisal gap	Lender's valuation is below purchase price	Renegotiate, cover gap in cash, or challenge the appraisal (see Section 3)
Buyer profile questions	Credit, debt load, or experience triggering extra scrutiny	Ask for conditions in writing; respond with documentation or compensating factors
Lender bottleneck	Generalist lender unfamiliar with dental deals or SBA queue	Ask about dental deal volume; consider switching to a dental-specialist lender

Protecting the Deal While You Wait: Seller Communication and LOI Extensions

Working through those diagnostic steps takes time — and while you're doing it, there's a parallel risk many buyers underestimate: the seller losing patience and walking away. Financing delays don't just create lender problems; they create relationship problems. A deal that's fully fixable on the financing side can still fall apart if the seller goes quiet, gets nervous, or starts fielding other offers.

The good news is that most sellers and brokers expect some delay. What they don't handle well is silence.

Keep the Seller Informed — Without Signaling Panic

A brief, factual update every 5–7 business days is almost always better than waiting until you have something definitive to report. You don't need to share every underwriting detail — a short message through your broker (or directly, if the relationship allows) that confirms you're actively managing the process goes a long way toward maintaining trust.

Something like: "Wanted to give you a quick update — we're working through a documentation request from the lender and expect to have it resolved by end of week. Still on track and committed to the deal." Calm, specific, forward-looking.

What tends to erode seller confidence isn't the delay itself — it's the feeling that the buyer has gone dark or lost control of the process.

How Closing Date Extensions Actually Work

If your timeline is slipping past the closing date in your LOI or purchase agreement, you'll need a written extension — a short amendment signed by both parties that moves the closing date forward by a defined period. Two to four weeks is the most common range in dental practice transactions.

Asking for an extension is a normal, professional step. Most sellers will agree to one if the request comes early and is accompanied by a clear explanation. What tends to create friction is waiting until the closing date has already passed, or asking without any explanation of what's causing the delay.

One pattern worth noting: sellers who have mentally moved on from the practice — ready for retirement, already planning their next chapter — are often more flexible on timeline than sellers who are emotionally attached to the outcome. Understanding where your seller sits can help you calibrate how much runway you realistically have. As one transition guide notes, a successful dental practice transition rests on transparency, preparation, and mutual respect between buyer and seller — and that dynamic doesn't pause while financing works itself out.

What Your Financing Contingency Does (and Doesn't) Protect

The financing contingency in your LOI or purchase agreement protects your earnest money deposit if financing falls through entirely — but it does not obligate the seller to wait beyond the agreed closing date without a signed extension. Once that date passes without an amendment, the seller may have the right to declare the deal dead and keep the deposit, depending on how the agreement is written.

This is exactly why involving your attorney before requesting an extension matters. As discussed in the context of hiring your own attorney, a buyer's attorney can draft extension language that moves the closing date without inadvertently resetting other contingency clocks or waiving due diligence protections you've already earned. A broker-drafted extension or a handshake agreement doesn't carry the same protection — and if a lease assignment or landlord approval is still pending, unresolved lease issues can give lenders grounds to pull financing entirely, making clean extension language even more critical.

The ask itself isn't a sign of weakness — how it's handled is what determines whether the deal holds together.

When to Escalate: Switching Lenders, Seller Financing, and Knowing When to Walk

If you've diagnosed the delay, communicated with the seller, and still don't have a conditional approval or a clear timeline from your lender, you're in escalation territory. That's not a failure — it's a decision point. Three levers are available to you, in order of increasing disruption.

Option 1: Switch Lenders

Switching lenders is a real option, but it comes with a real cost: restarting the clock by roughly 2–4 weeks, potentially triggering a new appraisal fee, and re-submitting a full application package. That's not nothing — but it's often worth it when the current lender has been in underwriting for six or more weeks without issuing a conditional approval, or when it becomes clear they have limited experience with dental goodwill valuations.

The ADA recommends talking to at least three banks before making an offer — specifically dental-experienced lenders who already understand the intricacies of the process. Buyers who followed that advice have a backup lender already warmed up. If you didn't, start those conversations now. You don't need to burn the current relationship to do it — a simple "I'm exploring parallel options to protect my timeline" is professional, not adversarial.

Option 2: Introduce Seller Financing

A seller note covering 10–20% of the purchase price reduces the bank loan amount — and sometimes that reduction is enough to push the deal into a cleaner approval range. If the delay appears tied to loan sizing, a high debt-service coverage ratio, or a payer mix that's creating borrowing capacity questions, this is worth raising directly with the seller. Reviewing how payer mix affects your borrowing capacity before that conversation lets you frame the ask around deal structure rather than financing difficulty. Most motivated sellers will at least hear the proposal.

Option 3: Walk Away Cleanly

The financing contingency exists precisely for this scenario — but "taking longer than expected" is not the same as "formally denied." Invoking the contingency prematurely, before a written denial from the lender, can put your earnest money deposit at risk and damage a relationship that may matter later.

When a clean exit is genuinely warranted, it means written notice within the contingency window, clear documentation of the financing denial, and no side-channel pressure on the seller. The dental world is smaller than it seems — a practice that falls through today may come back to market, and how you exit determines whether you're still in consideration.

Most delays resolve. Most deals close. The buyers who get there aren't necessarily the ones with the cleanest files or the fastest lenders — they're the ones who stayed active, communicated clearly, and knew which lever to pull when the process slowed down. You now have that framework. Use it.