Revealing mistake: When Melanie Griffith comes home from the jail, as she opens the door you can see there's no wall, it's just the door.
Continuity mistake: In the movie, Melanie Griffith's character's name is Patty Palmer. In the credits it's listed as "Patty Parker".
Plot hole: Hayes continues his harassment by calling the police and provokes Drake into assaulting him. When the police come and sees Hayes injured, they take Drake away immediately without asking any questions or investigating. No law authorities would ever take away someone with mere assumptions or without investigating, regardless of a history of Drake trying to force Hayes out by shutting off the utilities. Completely unrealistic.
Plot hole: Hayes never actually signed a lease for the apartment. He only promised to wire Drake $7500, then moved himself into the apartment without permission. So, technically, with no signed lease, he legally had no right to be there. Drake was well within his rights to shut off power to the apartment to force him to leave. He legally wasn't his tenant and had stolen the apartment, what we call a squatter in the USA.
Answer: A reputable bank requires borrowers to have an adequate income, a good credit rating, and some type of collateral (property, investments, other assets, etc,) above the amount of the loan in the event the customer defaults. It's been years since I've seen the movie, so I don't remember the timeline of events or what the loan was for, but if Patty and Drake had already bought the house, that could be used as collateral, though they might not want to risk it for such a low amount. If they hadn't bought the house, and had no other assets, it's highly unlikely they'd qualify for a loan.
raywest ★
And plenty of people might not "need" a loan because they've got the money saved, but they'd rather take out a loan and make predictable monthly payments they know are well within their means, rather than eat into their savings, leaving them with no safety net if some financial emergency hits.
This is still unrealistic and made up only for the film. No loan company would ever ask a client to put down a payment of that extravagant amount in order to get back the same amount of what they're asking for a loan for. Why on earth would a person take out a loan in the first place if they didn't actually need the money?