r/MortgagesCanada

(EDIT to reflect mortgage doc details) I'm $1500 away from paying off my mortgage (5 year smart fixed) - I've been making lump sum payments, just using the ten percent of original principal rule, so I've got room to do this.

I called BMO today to find out how much to pay it off completely, and they say because of the product I have, they can't tell me exactly how much unless I'm selling my house or changing products...? but can confirm that there's a discharge fee of possibly $400 (!) (Checked my mortgage docs and it says the discharge fee is $75, transfer fee is $400 - not sure why the person on the phone told me the latter...)

Anyway, just wondering if there's a way to get around this stupid fee and get out of mortgage jail with as little pain as possible - are there other fees I'll be paying...? Any strategies for wrapping this damn thing up?

Hello!

Started refinancing process in May for a renewal date in July which has since passed and put mortgage in open term since not everything has been finalized...

What is your experience in delays for getting refinancing approval with scotiabank?

Last update was 5 days ago " At this time, the file has been approved; however, I am waiting for it to be returned to me so that I can review any final details and share them with you"

Are these normal delays?

It has been a really disappointing experience, but perhaps my expectations are not realistic.

Just submitted my application today to be pre approved to buy a new house. I will be going on mat leave end of October. I assume we will be approved by then but don’t know if we will close on a property that soon. What is the process for being on mat leave with a mortgage approval? If I get a letter from my employer stating that/when I will return to work will financing likely be declined? Looking for any personal experiences. Thanks!

Received final offer of 3.55 5-yr variable uninsured for renewal with same lender (Scotia). Good to resign or should look around more? Mortgage is mil+. Current paying 3.48 prior to renewal so a .07 increase.

Currently have an accepted offer on a home, and financing was just approved. At the bottom of the approval, there is fine print reading:

“This approval is subject to there being no material change to your financial status, as
disclosed in the Application for Loan and, no material changes to the subject property.”

The issue is that I will be attending school for my apprenticeship during the months of September and October, and will be on EI during this time. Possession is Oct 15.

Will this be an issue and could the lender withdraw our approval? Should I inform the lender?

My partner will still be earning a full wage and I will be returning to work with my current employer after school.

21 and 22, no debt, ~150k gross income, 350k purchase price with 70k down. (Approved up to 500k purchase price). Approximately 320k in combined assets before home purchase.

We currently own a home worth approximately $650 000 to $700 000. We paid cash about 4 years ago so no mortgage. We have no car payments or other debts.

We are single income making just about $75 000 after tax on a single income with CCB included. We are looking at potentially moving but would like to buy another home and moving prior to selling the one we currently live in. Looking in the $550 000 to $650 000 range.

Is there any hope of us getting a mortgage or HELOC for this to happen or do we need to just accept we will need to sell to buy either before or as a condition on the offer?

Building our first home. We needed a down payment of 40,000. We already had 20,000 in our savings and decided to use my RRSP for the rest. Thing is My funds are taking forever to come out of Manulife (RRSP). We are meant to waive conditions this week so my parents gifted us 20k since my funds are taking too long to come in. We don’t have to pay them back, they just didn’t want us to miss out on our dream lot. Should we just change the lender paperwork before we take possession in 7 months ? We have already signed mortgage approval and handed over the down payment to the builder !

My fiancée and I are getting married soon and are debating between attempting to buy a townhome in Toronto ($1M) or renting (approx. $3K/month for a two-bed, two-bath in Toronto) for 1-2 years and continuing to save.

I experienced health issues from 2021-2023 that left me almost entirely unable to work. Admittedly, I lived beyond my means prior to this setback and the debts (loan, credit cards, etc.) quickly mounted and I ended up filing a consumer proposal to preserve what little sanity I had left with all of the appointments. I have since returned to better health and have completely paid off the proposal (April of this year was my final payment). My credit rating is currently at 675, while my fiancée's is at 825.

Because of the health issues, I slowly returned to work via freelance and contract full-time roles, so my two previous NOAs do not demonstrate consistent income. That said, I've been blessed with a great year and am currently on track to earn $150K+ (gross) from self employment. My fiancée has been employed on a full-time basis for seven-plus years and earns just shy of $90K/year (gross).

We have around $200K set aside for a down payment, not including our emergency fund, etc.

Open to any suggestions or opinions. Thanks in advance.

I’m not very knowledgeable in terms of mortgages so bear with me please.

I have a 3 year fixed mortgage with Scotiabank and my first renewal is in April 2027 but I can renew 6 months early in October. I bought the home for 700k and now it’s worth 600k.

I wasn’t offered a HELOC at the time or even knew about it (…I know) to ask for one.

With the value of the home depreciating to 600k, my remaining balance goes above 80 percent of the value of the house. Since pretty much the whole 3 years I was paying interest, the remaining balance didn’t go down that much.

My question is, When it comes time to renew, will I be offered a HELOC? Can I ask for one?

Edit: my real question I suppose would be, would the bank check the current value of the home or go with the original price if I asked for a HELOC?

I am looking to get a mortgage in Ontario. Not sure where to look for a loan whether I should just go through my bank or use an online broker.I invest with Wealthsimple and see that they collaborate with Pine Mortgages and wondered if that would be a good alternative to my bank.

My partner and I are both low earners. Partner has poor spending habits and struggles to save, barely ever gainfully employed. I work a lot, self employed but only do about $60k/yr in gross revenue and maybe bring home $40k of that. I have a savings of approximately $30k in investments and my only other assets are my truck/trailer and tools for my business.

I know that I could come up with money for a down payment but my concern is passing the stress test as a low earner. I think ideally I would purchase the house solely in my name but would be open to purchasing with my partner if her income added to the equation would make purchasing a home possible. I have also considered trying to find affordable land to do a land mortgage and build a very basic small home if that was feasible. Truthfully I think I would prefer the buying vacant land and building a humble dwelling on it rather than buying an already constructed home.

Any advice is welcomed, thank-you.

I'm renewing my mortgage for the first time and have two offers on the table, RBC and Scotia. Both are variable at 3.5 and both come with a $37K HELOC. Trying to figure out which way to go and would appreciate some perspective.

my wife and I are self employed, coming off a B lender, and we've already done everything needed to qualify with an A lender. Because of that, we're planning to stick with whichever bank we pick for the foreseeable future.

The Condo is currently in my name only, but as of the renewal we're adding my wife to the mortgage.

RBC offer:

• Waives legal fees (by adding my wife as a guarantor)
• Gives cash back, about $1,100, plus Avion points
• I keep the $37K HELOC

Scotia offer:

• Can also waive legal fees by adding my wife as guarantor, but only if I give up the HELOC
• If I want to keep the HELOC, I pay legal fees (around $1,200 + HST) and get no cash back

So with Scotia it's basically pick one: keep the HELOC and pay legal fees with no cash back, or waive the fees and lose the HELOC. RBC lets me keep the HELOC, waives the fees, and still gives me cash back and points.

Since this is my first renewal, I want to make sure I'm not missing anything obvious that would make Scotia the better long-term move despite RBC looking like the clear winner on paper. \

I’ve seen lots of posts saying RBC is offering 50k points…. But do you actually use them?

​

I already feel filthy, so I'm just hoping folks with advice can provide it without being too judgmental.

We started our recent mortgage five years ago. We had sold a property and used proceeds to pay down any debt and down pay our new property.

As far as I can go back my partner has had issues with debt. He also had issues telling me about debt. But in any event, he seemed to always be able to pay it down. It's an ongoing struggle. I am aiming him towards counseling of different types. We do not share unsecured debt, we have separate cards.

1. I called the bank to get some information about opening our HELOC, surprised they said that it was not possible because of the status of some of his accounts.

2. I called the bank to see if there were any better r available. They said that he had paid their mortgage late a few times (within 4 days or less from due date but it still looks bad) so they weren't able to offer a good r until there were more consecutive months of on time payment.

3. renewal is coming up and I'm dreading the bank telling us that we will not be able to renew. we are already on the radar.

4. I reached out to a broker who we have used in the past. He advised the grim news that my partners credit score is so low, mine is good, but he is suggesting a B lender for 1 year. He mentioned the b lender will roll debts into the mortgage & charge a 1 fee.

5. I asked the broker, what would happen if we just auto renewed with our current bank. He said sure you can do that but it won't solve the other issues.

Edit to add: 6. My partner says there was extraordinary pressures the last 12 months as I wasnt working but I dont agree, 12 months is not 75k. A lot was mismanaging expense accounting where theres a lag between expenses & reimbursement & he couldnt manage cash flow.

I've always been banking with A lenders. This B lender talk is embarrassing. Our HHI is $300k, again embarassing.

Current mort: 900k

Value: 1.3M

Debt: 75k

Current: 5.3p

*Can someone talk to me about their experience with b lenders and if they're actually able to climb out back to A lender after one year.*

*Or do I auto renew with my current bank & find other creative ways to pay down the debt, like a consolidation?*

My 5 yr fixed term will end November 1st. It was only 2.45 but I only owe $100,000, so it won't make a huge difference in payments with what they are offering me.

The thing is, I THINK I will sell my house in 3 yrs, maybe 2 yrs, not sure, to get something smaller, I would like to get some money out of my house - it is my first house. I"ve been here 10 yrs.

Scotiabank is offering:

Variable 5 yr : 3.37

Fixed:
1 yr 4.31
2yr 3.71
3yr 3.80
4yr 3.94
5yr 4.01

If I renew now, I'll have a higher September and October payment because it says I have to accept it in the session. It isn't THAT much, so it's ok.

But I don't know what to do because, I'm not 100 percent sure that I'd be able to find a house to buy in 2 or 3 yrs and sell mine. It all depends on good market/bad market at the time.

If I accept 2yr, what will mortgages be in 2yrs? A LOT higher? Do I need to go for 3 yrs?
I doubt that I will move before 2 yrs. I could stay 3 if I have to though. Haha

Anyway, I wanted to post here to let people know what is being offered right now in August, but also, not sure what the best thing to do is.

It said something about 90 days that I'd be able to port my mortgage. Does it mean at the end of the fixed term? Or right now if I sign?

IT's hard to know the right thing to do because I am not rich. I am pretty low income and it was only by chance that I was able to even buy a house 10 yrs ago. I just don't want to be stuck in 2 yrs or 3 yrs and the next offer is double.

Underwater means, Is your mortgage principal more than the current value of the home? Are you making your payments? How are you feeling?

My lender wasn't giving me a competitive renewal offer so I reached out to a broker which was able to to get something quite a bit better and my current lender wasn't willing to match it so I singed a commitment letter with the new lender. Fast forward two weeks later, the account manager sends me an updated renewal offer which matches the new lenders offer.

So now I'm wondering if I can back out of my commitment letter and stick with my current lender and save all of the hassle of switching everything over. Because with both offers being equal now, if there's one small hiccup at closing with the new lender I'll be losing money.

But I also know that the broker will probably be pissed if I back out now so I'm at a loss as to what to do and here looking for advice. We're still 45 days out and haven't signed anything other than the commitment letter yet.

Married couple with 2 kids under 5.

Gross household income is around 112,000 including CCB. Monthly debt payments are around $750 for a car loan and student loan. We want to buy a house in New Brunswick and currently live in Nova Scotia.

I have been employed full-time at the same place for 8.5 years and work remote so there is no issue with me moving provinces and keeping the same job.

My husband is a full-time hourly paid apprentice plumber. He has an offer to join the local union in the city in NB we plan to move to. I’m really concerned that my husband’s employment situation will prevent us from getting approved for a mortgage.

First of all, he has only been working in the trades for one year.

In order for him to start working in NB, we need a place to live. But I’m under the impression that lenders will need to see pay stubs from his new job. How does work for people who move provinces to start a new job?

Third, as a union member he may be laid off from time to time. How do lenders view union trade workers?

We are thinking we might have him go to NB first and live with my parents for a few months to get started at the new job, but obviously that’s not ideal as he’ll be 4 hours away from his kids and me. I suppose we could make it work, but it would be hard. That also doesn’t address the union thing.

Some info that may be relevant: We have a down payment of 100,000 and hope to find a house in the 400-450k range. We both have excellent credit scores.

Any insight on how this might go for us? I am in touch with a mortgage broker but she hasn’t gotten back to us with a pre-approval yet.

My mortgage was transferred from TD to RBC successfully today. August was the last payment date at TD and the balance should have been transferred to/ funded by RBC.

eg: balance after August payment in TD is $220K so the balance in RBC should be #220K - what I see in RBC is $222K?

The mortgage transferred was offered with no additional fees, just a direct transfer.

This is the first time I am transferring out off TD since inception so I am not aware about it.

Is this normal? Are there charges that are typically included even though no fees were promised? Do they typically credit the excess back to the account?

I have contacted the mortgage person who helped me but they are very slow to response and I want gather information so that I don't get taken for a ride.

I unfortunately find myself in a situation where I have to file a consumer proposal. It’s a long story, but that’s for another time.

I know that CP doesn’t affect your current mortgage. But I read online that If you owe unsecured debt to the same bank that holds your mortgage while filing a consumer proposal, there might be a major risks regarding any future mortgage renewal.

Has anyone gone through a similar case and if yes, what was the outcome?

Thank you in advance!