Tricky Doc requests

Joel Olson • October 28, 2021

TRICKY DOC REQUEST What to do, when you don't know what to do.

1. I have no agreement and have been separated for years.

If you are separated or divorce, we are looking for an agreement that confirms that you pay no spousal support, child support and that all your assets have been divided equally. If none of these things would have applied you can reply to that doc request that you wish to sign a stat dec at the time of closing as none of this applicable.

2. I can’t get a job letter.

Every lender these days need to verify your employment by way of a job letter from your employer. Whoever does payroll will be able to provide you with one. The letter should be signed have a number in which a lender can to verify. The letter itself must state your start date, # of guarnateed hours every week or your yearly salary as well as your hourly wage.

3. I don’t have access to Tax Returns

You can get your tax returns from your bookkeeper or accountant or whoever assembled your taxes. Your tax returns are not the same as your notice of assessments that just tell us how much income that you have made. Your tax return must contain all the pages, which will tell us how much any business or rental property grossed and its applicable expenses. We have to get all the pages of the return to be able to use it.

4. Where do I get a property tax statement?

You can simply call your applicable municipal office, they can supply you with one by email which will be sufficient.

5. Where do I get a gift letter from?

We don’t need to have a gift letter signed till after we get you approved. Every lender will have their own form.

6. Do I have to sign all the contracts?

Yes, it's important that you know exactly what to expect and when to expect it, so please make sure to address any questions that you have.

7. Do I need to show the downpayment if I haven’t found a house yet?

Different sources of downpayment matter. We need to know that we can verify where your downpayment funds are coming from. We can’t wait to see funds in your account, but we need to know where we are coming from. Anti-money laundering insists that we can give a history of every account that is sourcing the downpayment as well. We can’t just accept a screenshot of your account

8. I work for myself- do I need a job letter?

If you are an owner of a company regardless of how you get paid, we will need to see your last two years tax returns as well as your last two years company financial statements. You won’t need a job letter though

9. Do you really need a void cheque?

The void cheque is the account which will be debited the mortgage payment. We can wait on that, but we will need it.

10. Can you give me a rough idea on what I qualify for

There are some many way we have to calculate qualifying. How much you work, for how long you have worked, how many hours, how much downpayment, and where you are buying are all questions that can make a meaningful impact on your application and change how much you qualify for. This is why we have to get all the information and documents before making a decision.

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Joel Olson

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What is a “No-Frills” Mortgage?

By Joel Olson • March 25, 2025

A no-frills service or product is where non-essential features have been removed from the product or service to keep the price as low as possible. And while keeping costs low at the expense of non-essential features might be okay when choosing something like which grocery store to shop at, which economy car to purchase, or which budget hotel to spend the night, it’s not a good idea when considering which lender to secure mortgage financing. Here’s why. When securing mortgage financing, your goal should be to pay the least amount of money over the term. Your plan should include having provisions for unexpected life changes. Unlike the inconvenience of shopping at a store that doesn’t provide free bags, or driving a car without power windows, or staying at a hotel without any amenities, the so-called “frills” that are stripped away to provide you with the lowest rate mortgage are the very things that could significantly impact your overall cost of borrowing. Depending on the lender, a “no-frills” mortgage rate might be up to 0.20% lower than a fully-featured mortgage. And while this could potentially save you a few hundreds of dollars over a 5-year term, please understand that it could also potentially cost you thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars should you need to break your mortgage early. So if you’re considering a “no-frills” mortgage, here are a few of the drawbacks to think through: You'll pay a significantly higher penalty if you need to break your mortgage. You'll have limited pre-payment privileges. Potential limitations if you want to port your mortgage to a different property. You might be limited in your ability to refinance your mortgage (without incurring a considerable penalty). Simply put, a “no-frills” mortgage is an entirely restrictive mortgage that leaves you without any flexibility. There are many reasons you might need to keep your options open. You might need to break your term because of a job loss or marital breakdown, or maybe you decide to take a new job across the country, or you need to buy a property to accommodate your growing family. Life is unpredictable; flexibility matters. So why do banks offer a no-frills mortgage anyway? Well, when you deal with a single bank or financial institution, it’s the banker’s job to make as much money from you as possible, even if that means locking you into a very restrictive mortgage product by offering a rock bottom rate. Banks know that 2 out of 3 people break their mortgage within three years (33 months). However, when you seek the expert advice of an independent mortgage professional, you can expect to see mortgage options from several institutions showcasing mortgage products best suited for your needs. We have your best interest in mind and will help you through the entire process. A mortgage is so much more than just the lowest rate. If you have any questions about this, or if you’d like to discuss anything else mortgage-related, please get in touch. Working with you would be a pleasure!

How to Handle Missed Payments

By Joel Olson • March 11, 2025

If you’ve missed a payment on your credit card or line of credit and you’re wondering how to handle things and if this will impact your creditworthiness down the road, this article is for you. But before we get started, if you have an overdue balance on any of your credit cards at this exact moment, go, make the minimum payment right now. Seriously, log in to your internet banking and make the minimum payment. The rest can wait. Here’s the good news, if you’ve just missed a payment by a couple of days, you have nothing to worry about. Credit reporting agencies only record when you’ve been 30, 60, and 90 days late on a payment. So, if you got busy and missed your minimum payment due date but made the payment as soon as you realized your error, as long as you haven’t been over 30 days late, it shouldn’t show up as a blemish on your credit report. However, there’s nothing wrong with making sure. You can always call your credit card company and let them know what happened. Let them know that you missed the payment but that you paid it as soon as you could. Keeping in contact with them is the key. By giving them a quick call, if you have a history of timely payments, they might even go ahead and refund the interest that accumulated on the missed payment. You never know unless you ask! Now, if you’re having some cash flow issues, and you’ve been 30, 60, or 90 days late on payments, and you haven’t made the minimum payment, your creditworthiness has probably taken a hit. The best thing you can do is make all the minimum payments on your accounts as soon as possible. Getting up to date as quickly as possible will mitigate the damage to your credit score. The worst thing you can do is bury your head in the sand and ignore the problem, because it won’t go away. If you cannot make your payments, the best action plan is to contact your lender regularly until you can. They want to work with you! The last thing they want is radio silence on your end. If they haven’t heard from you after repeated missed payments, they might write off your balance as “bad debt” and assign it to a collection agency. Collections and bad debts look bad on your credit report. As far as qualifying for a mortgage goes, repeated missed payments will negatively impact your ability to get a mortgage. But once you’re back to making regular payments, the more time that goes by, the better your credit will get. It’s all about timing. Always try to be as current as possible with your payments. So If you plan to buy a property in the next couple of years, it’s never too early to work through your financing, especially if you’ve missed a payment or two in the last couple of years and you’re unsure of where you stand with your credit. Please connect directly; it would be a pleasure to walk through your mortgage application and credit report. Let’s look and see exactly where you stand and what steps you need to take to qualify for a mortgage.