A friend just sent me an email saying he was thinking of getting a line of credit from the bank, where they will almost certainly demand that he sign personally, which can put him at risk a lot more than he wants.  My response:

Hi Mark, something to consider:

 See if you can borrow from a "person", not a bank. It is easier than you think.

 Even if the paperwork is EXACTLY the same, here is the difference: When something goes wrong (note i didn't say "if" - things go wrong way too often to not provide for it), the bank cannot work with you; the nice guy who gave you the loan has moved on, or there is a different loan committee, etc.; remember, there is no such thing as "the bank" -- there are only the bank employees you happen to deal with.  No matter how much they want to help you, they need to keep their jobs and not get in trouble, so they are not likely to try something "different" just so the bank can make more money; even if the bank loses money, that's okay as long as "it ain't their fault".

But-- you can almost ALWAYS make a deal with an individual: "uh, we can't pay you back on this million dollar loan, but how 'bout we give you 50% of this $3M building with an option to buy it back within a year for $1.2M"?

Get the point?-- great deal for him, keeps you alive.  Banks can never make that kind of deal.  The magic that will save you when things go wrong is most often in the thought given to the structuring before the deal goes down.