Loan maturity ladder template for CRE debt

A loan maturity ladder is a table with one row per loan and one column per date that carries a consequence: maturity, rate reset, extension option notice deadline, and covenant test dates. Sort it by the nearest date and you have the month's work in order. The template below is the version we use in conversations with owners who track 5 to 50 loans. You can download the template at the bottom of the page.

What is a loan maturity ladder?

A loan maturity ladder is a dated inventory of a debt book, ordered by what happens next. The name comes from the maturity column, but on a commercial real estate book the maturity is rarely the first date that bites. A rate reset on a floating loan, a 90-day extension notice window, or a quarterly DSCR test usually arrives first, and each of those has a consequence if nobody is looking.

The ladder answers one question at a glance: for every loan, what is the next date, and who is handling it. It is not a substitute for the loan documents, for the lender's own notices, or for your counsel. What it does is make sure the responsible person sees the date coming before the lender's notice arrives.

Which columns does the template include?

There are eleven columns. The order matters, because the table is meant to be read left to right in a monthly meeting.

• Loan: your internal identifier and the property it sits on.
• Borrower: the borrowing entity, since one operator often has several.
• Lender: the lending institution or fund as named in the note.
• Principal: current outstanding balance, updated when you receive a statement.
• Rate: the all-in rate today. For floating loans, note the index and spread in the cell.
• Rate reset date: the next date the rate recalculates. Fixed loans carry "fixed".
• Maturity: the stated maturity date, before any extension.
• Extension option deadline: the last day to give exercise notice, which is usually well before maturity.
• Covenant test dates: the next test date for each covenant, with the covenant named.
• Next action: the one thing that has to happen before the nearest date.
• Owner: one named person who is doing it.

The template ships with eight fictional loans filled in so the shape is obvious. Replace them with yours.

What is the monthly routine?

Walk the ladder once a month, on a fixed day, with the owners in the room or on the call. It takes under an hour for a book of 20 loans if the table is current.

1. Re-sort by the nearest date across all four date columns. A spreadsheet will not do this for you across columns, so the easiest method is a helper column that takes the minimum of the four.
2. For every row with a date inside 90 days, confirm the next action and the owner. If the action is "send extension notice" and the deadline is 60 days out, the notice needs to be drafted this month.
3. For every floating loan, check whether the rate reset moved the payment. Update the principal and rate from the last statement.
4. For every covenant test inside the quarter, confirm the financials needed to run it are on hand and who is producing them.
5. Note anything that changed in the loan documents since last month: an amendment, a new guaranty, a cap that was purchased or expired.

The routine matters more than the template does. If nobody walks the table, it might as well not exist.

Where does a spreadsheet stop working?

A spreadsheet ladder stops working at a few predictable points, and most books hit all of them within a year.

Rate resets are the first strain. A floating loan's amortization schedule recalculates every time the rate resets, and the balloon at maturity moves with it. Keeping that current in a spreadsheet means rebuilding the schedule by hand every reset, for every floating loan.

Covenant cadences are the next one. Financial covenants test quarterly, some annually, some on custom dates tied to the fiscal year, and each one has its own headroom. A single "covenant test dates" column cannot hold that, so the detail moves to a second tab, and then a third, and the ladder stops being one table.

Then there is the people problem, which is less about the spreadsheet than about the file. Once two people edit it, the version in the shared drive and the version in someone's inbox disagree, and nobody can say who changed the extension deadline or when.

TractTerm is built for the point where the spreadsheet gives out. It keeps each loan's real structure, recalculates the amortization schedule on rate resets, runs a portfolio-wide maturity calendar and rate-reset calendar with warning horizons you configure, tracks extension option deadlines with eligibility tested against the loan's current covenant and rate-cap state, and schedules covenant tests on quarterly, annual or custom cadences with headroom shown. It imports your existing spreadsheet in bulk, so this template is a valid starting point. Every change lands in an audit trail with a name on it.

TractTerm never moves money, and it is not a lender. The tests it computes come from the terms you enter, and your lender still determines compliance. For the reasoning behind warning horizons, read planning for a CRE loan maturity wall; for the notice window specifically, read extension option notice deadlines; for what the reset column is really tracking, read SOFR reset dates on a CRE loan.