Lending against an assignment fee when the security won't actually work

Say an operator with a clean track record on two prior rehab loans asks for something different: $18,000 for 30 days to cover earnest money and a small non-refundable extension on a contract, to be repaid out of an assignment fee at closing, contracted at $27,500 with an end buyer already signed. A lender in that spot typically has copies of both agreements, the purchase contract with the seller and the signed assignment to the end buyer with the fee stated in both, proof of the end buyer's funds such as a bank statement screenshot, a title company already holding the file, and a track record of two prior loans repaid on time, both secured by real property. What should give any lender pause is that there is no real property to secure this kind of loan. The borrower never takes title. What's actually being lent against is equitable interest in a contract, an assignable right that evaporates if the seller cancels, if the contract terms fail, or if the end buyer walks. Recording a memorandum of the contract is one option, though acceptance for recording varies by state, and doing it can cloud title in a way that unsettles everyone at the closing table. The realistic alternatives are a UCC filing against the borrower's entity, worth only what that entity is worth, or a personal guarantee priced as unsecured, which at $18,000 for 30 days usually needs a fee large enough that the borrower says no. The question worth asking before anything else: if the end buyer is real and funded, why isn't the end buyer funding the earnest money directly. That question tends to do more work than the collateral analysis.