Definition

Someone who takes money or property with the solemn promise to return it, a promise that banks document in triplicate just in case. In real estate, this is the person signing away their financial future for the privilege of owning a home. Also known as the person who will be seeing a lot of mortgage statements for the next 30 years.

Example Usage

The borrower signed the mortgage documents and became intimately acquainted with the concept of amortization.

Source: Financial and real estate terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

Valuation

The estimated worth of a company, a number that ranges from scientifically calculated to completely made up depending on who's doing the estimating. Startup valuations in particular are an art form, where a company with no revenue and an idea on a napkin can be worth a billion dollars if the napkin is impressive enough.

💰 Finance / Accounting🚀 Startup / VC
Beginner

salvage value

The estimated value of an asset at the end of its useful life, before you actually try to sell it and discover it's worth much less. Also called residual value by optimists who think depreciation schedules reflect reality.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Intermediate

VAT

Value Added Tax, the European way of making you pay incrementally for everything at each stage of production and distribution. Unlike American sales tax that hits you once at checkout, VAT is baked into the price at every step, making it simultaneously more transparent and more insidious. British tourists love explaining this to confused Americans at duty-free shops.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

covenant lite

Loans with few or no maintenance covenants that would normally protect lenders, essentially trusting borrowers to be responsible without supervision. It's the financial equivalent of lending your car to a teenager with no curfew.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

Negative Pledge

A loan covenant preventing borrowers from pledging assets as collateral to other lenders, protecting unsecured creditors from being subordinated. It's lenders making sure you can't promise the same car to multiple people.

💰 Finance / Accounting
Advanced

management carve-out

When executives negotiate a special deal ensuring they get paid even if the company fails and everyone else gets screwed. Because apparently captains should abandon ship with golden parachutes.

💰 Finance / Accounting

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See “borrower” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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A term that refers to a transaction of getting two things for one instead of the usual one to one ratio; may appear duri...