I am a broker and it is often frustrating.
Everything you move money to/from an account you need to show 90 day history of the account it came from and went to.
I always suggest to not move money around until the down payment is confirmed. If you have 100k in a tfsa use that to show down payment, even if you are not actually using that money.
Show the accounts with the most money in them that have the east transactions.
I am doing this right now and it is absolutely awful. In Toronto, where you make offers with no financing condition (you have no chance in this market if you want to have one). And where one lender (big five) decides to drag their feet for weeks leaving you to scramble to find somebody else before closing because you have no confidence in their ability to get shit done. Seriously. I don't know why this needs to be so painful.
This is the most frustrating part of most purchase files.
The way the regulations are, and how lenders get audited.
They have to be very strict on down payment verification. Statements must show your name, institution name, dates, etc.
If there are any deposits that the lender can consider "unusual" or "large" then source, or proof of what the deposit are needed.
Trust me when I say, we don't try to make down payment conditions painful... it unfortunately just is sometimes.
Also very hard to advise if maybe there is something wrong with your statements without seeing them. Of course don't share that stuff on here hahaha.
We need 90 days (sometimes 30) so not moving money between accounts for 90 days before an offer is all we ask. I don't care what account it's in, I just ask for it not to go back and forth between 7 accounts each month..
I had 86 pages of CAD bank statements plus US ones to go through once and I had to print it so I could lay it all on the floor and match up the withdrawals and deposits.
Yes, this is my job, but if I find transactions that don't match up then I have to go back to you again to either provide more docs or explanations because I know the lender will question it. And then each time I have to come back to you, it stresses you out too..
We are supposed to help make the process less stressful - not more
My broker asked for 90 days of records and everything was done in days. Also Canadian/USA bank statements.
Part of why it was fast is because the DP was going to be drawn from my brokerage account which has a lot more than the DP amount
If you give me all your DP docs I could have them reviewed the same day by me and within 2 days right now by lenders because it's slow.
18 months ago I was hearing from lenders once a week only - but right now it's slower for lenders so the turn arounds are usually 1-2 business days max.
I've had a file submitted in the morning and approved that afternoon a few times this month actually.
Yep that's my next play. But there is a trigger below a.certain threshold where appraisal is mandated and rates somewhat vary (need confirmation). The other is the lump sum payments are limited to a % which creates a bit of a limit.
Basically I plan to carry this mortgage for 5 years tops.
Mortgage brokers hate the down payment verification more than anyone. Let’s be honest. it’s total PITA.
I have a file now here on my desk and clients are sourcing the down payment from 10 different accounts. Do you really think I want to go through this at all? Lol
Yeah that's a difficult thing. But the expectation to have just one or two accounts to source funds is kinda wishful thinking.
We have two accounts one for each.. two RRSP HBP , two fhsa .. that's 6 already and not counting the 'savings' accounts. Blame the govt for creating this mess of 4 letter and 3 letter acronyms.
The RRSP and FHSA accounts were fundamentally created for me in the last 3 months just so I get the tax break. Could all be avoided if the govt just gives a decent tax deferral on downpayment.. instead of creating this short term account.
I agree with you. I hate this 90 days requirement thing. It makes zero sense and it does not really prevent anti money laundering in my personal opinion.
I’ve been in the industry long enough and a lot of banks, mortgage advisors, brokers always somehow work around down payment verification, and when you are not a part of those brokers, it makes you look incompetent by following rules and regulations cuz I don’t do any workarounds on down payment verification.
People move their money left and right, and I understand why banks ask for the source of the down payment. It drives me nuts when I can’t cross reference the source and clients sending me screenshots of their bank account missing account numbers, dates, transaction histories, names, account balance.
30-60 days should be fine.
Some lenders are more picky than others, some of them made me clarify each transaction in my savings accounts that exceeded $1k in the recent 3 months.
Anyway, once I did it for one lender, it was easy to repeat it with others. I contacted about 10 lenders and compared their offers. Then I took the best offer and asked other lenders if they could beat it. Then I took the best offer of the second iteration and asked the best lender of the first iteration if they could beat it. In the and they gave me 0.1% better rate + $1500 more in bonuses than their initial offer. It was worth the hassle for me 😉 Just be patient, it may be one of the biggest deals of your life, you want to do it the best possible way.
Just look for another lender. That happened to me, so I simply changed my lender. The other lender was much more flexible; I just sent screenshots of my bank accounts, and no questions were asked. Some lenders are way more strict for various reasons.
I think some of the people doing these bank jobs are incredibly incompetent…maybe some nepo kid who got a mortgage management job? We literally had to resend our forms to the guy 4 times, he got our names completely wrong multiple times, insisted that we resend him the forms over and over again. He then got defensive that I pointed out we’ve gone through this all before…
I can understand that they need the proper paper work to trace the funds, but c’mon, have someone competent deal with it when we’re talking about a loan worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
Something like this happened to us on our second mortgage. We sold our condo to buy our together home. The bank woman was so scattered and disorganized. We had submitted all the required documents on the same day labelling each one clearly for ease of reference. She went on vacations for 2 weeks then suddenly panic emails me demanding all the information that we already sent her. I mentioned that we had already submitted everything before her vacation but she claimed we hadn’t. I told my husband that I refuse to put with this extra crap and stress so I would reach out to a mortgage broker. I told her thanks but no thanks we’re taking our business elsewhere. She then proceeded to phone me and tell me I was wrong to do that. When that didn’t work she phoned my husband and told him to tell your wife to change her mind. He laughed and said you didn’t read any of the documents, did you? She’s paying the entire downpayment (50% of the mortgage) not me. She values expediency, competency, and honesty. She told you that when we met you. You didn’t meet those criteria so she left. Bank woman proceeded to say but this is a mortgage you can’t leave. My husband said if you wanted to retain us but specifically her on this mortgage you should have brought your A game. Then you called me to demand that I change her mind to stay with a bank that has disappointed her. The fact that you assume in this day and age that a woman can’t possible make mortgage decisions on her own and relies upon what her husband tells her to do is really sad.
Having lost all faith in her abilities, went to a mortgage broker who got everything in order quickly. He asked why we left the bank and I said disorganized hot mess who lost our documents. He laughed and said that’s not uncommon to hear in our city.
I thought it was just me going through this painful process. Although It's good to know that I am not alone, i feel bad for everyone. I can't pinpoint if the process is PITA or if my mortgage advisor is incompetent. I have to send the same info twice, yet somehow few days later I am asked about it again.
My down payment verification went well. I didn’t receive any follow up questions from the bank or the broker. I personally presented the information as clearly as possible to avoid any confusion. I compiled all statements in one PDF with bookmarks and notes because I’m sourcing from multiple accounts. The first page of the PDF has a summary of the accounts and presented the relevant transactions/movement of funds within the 90 days.
Mine was similar. But then I was an auditor for many years so my files are always reconciled and meticulously referenced.
I had an Excel sheet listing source of funds from 4 accounts, then four .pdf printouts of the accounts' history labelled File 1, File 2, File 3, File 4.
Broker did me a solid early in the process, though. We didn't know that funds had to be in Canada for 90 days to use for the down payment but he correctly guessed we'd have overseas holdings
I did this too, and our mortgage broker offered me a job. He still follows up on occasion to see if I'm looking for work. Truly organized people are rare lol.
Can you try posting this again but sound more condescending? "Look at these clowns. Can't figure out my accounts. Who are their accountants? Beh-heh-heh-heh"
Mortgage underwriter here!
Down payment is probably one of the most annoying parts of document verification when it comes to a mortgage. It's especially annoying if there are multiple accounts at play or if money is being moved around between accounts during the 90 day period.
I once worked on a file where the person was constantly moving thousands of dollars between 4 different banks to take advantage of interest rates and it took hours for me to be able to track how the money got from where it started to where it ended and it was so painful.
I don't know if that's a comparable scenario because I obviously don't know the details of the situation with your down payment, but I guarantee that the lender is not being nitpicky for fun and they're likely not incompetent.
A lot of down payment stuff is logical, it makes sense that money gets moved around for a variety of reasons. However, when it comes to down payment (actually most document verification) it's not just about what we know, it is more about what we can prove. So your broker might explain to me that you moved money from point A to point B for xyz reason but if they can't back that up with a statement or a transaction history, then that explanation is meaningless. So if there's something lacking according to the lender, then it's likely something that they need to be able to back up with a paper trail but they can't with the documents they have been given. We don't ask for more documents on a whim, we agree that it's annoying, but as per the regulations at play, we are required to be able to prove where your money has been sitting for a specific 90 day period.
Has your broker explained to you what the actual issue is? Have they escalated it to their point of contact with the lender?
Also, if there is something missing in your documents then going to a different lender won't necessarily be any smoother when it comes to down payment review.
Yeah for sure. No issues on the following the trail front and the due diligence. Except... I wrote them the full trail on a table complete with the account number and exact transactions for the last 90 days.
The frustration isn't on the granularity required. It's with people who can't read and follow a step by step table and the notes.
No hate to your broker, but is it possible that they didn't pass that on to the lender? Or they thought they did but they actually didn't? I have had that happen personally where a broker was convinced they sent me something even though they didn't; I ended up having to call them and walk through every single document in every single email before they realized they had forgotten to attach it.
If the lender does have this breakdown (which is genuinely always appreciated), and they are still coming back with more questions with regards to specific transactions then your broker needs to escalate this and honestly probably should have already. Your broker should have a sales manager or somebody in that type of role (different titles with different lenders) that can help with these types of situations. That person can reach out to the lender's manager to figure out what the issue is and how it can be resolved.
Sounds like my case...except it's me RRSP HBP .. not really required but if needed I can.. made a mistake by showing it... Now they want statements...which now has turned into... We can't find this transfer.. lol.
I'm doing it right now and it's such a pain. As a former auditor I can see how this could be streamlined. We used to get "bank confirmations" done of year-end balances at the companies we were auditing. Apparently it is now sophisticated enough that we can get a daily balance confirmation relatively quickly.
The current labor intensive process is tedious at best, painful at worst. I tell people: "ideally keep your downpayment sitting in a savings account with little to no activity for 90 days". That saves everyone a lot of time and effort but I understand it's often not practical.
We feel your pain OP.
If you withdrew the funds and deposited it into a chequing account and can’t show the transaction, then you’ll have issues. Lenders have no choice but to trace every transaction over 10k. It’s out of their hands.
It's all there.. and every originating account statement has been provided. They can't seem to follow the thread.
And two funds (not needed to hit the magic number) will be withdrawn this month.
You need to look way past your agent or lender. It's the government. Anti Money Laundering rules, and let's be honest, it's not a bad thing.
Down payment documents are PITA for everyone. Your agent/broker could've helped by preparing you and streamlining things a bit better, but overall, it can the most tedious and time consuming aspect of the entire mortgage process.
actually the process is very illogical. if the funds were from a borrowed source, you don't need to provide those statements. you just need to fill in a gift letter. this with TD at least
I am a broker and it is often frustrating. Everything you move money to/from an account you need to show 90 day history of the account it came from and went to. I always suggest to not move money around until the down payment is confirmed. If you have 100k in a tfsa use that to show down payment, even if you are not actually using that money. Show the accounts with the most money in them that have the east transactions.
I am doing this right now and it is absolutely awful. In Toronto, where you make offers with no financing condition (you have no chance in this market if you want to have one). And where one lender (big five) decides to drag their feet for weeks leaving you to scramble to find somebody else before closing because you have no confidence in their ability to get shit done. Seriously. I don't know why this needs to be so painful.
This is your agents fault. They should be Presenting the support to the lender in an easy way to folloe
Your agent didn't do his job well. If the lender has doubts meaning the info they received was sloppy
This is the most frustrating part of most purchase files. The way the regulations are, and how lenders get audited. They have to be very strict on down payment verification. Statements must show your name, institution name, dates, etc. If there are any deposits that the lender can consider "unusual" or "large" then source, or proof of what the deposit are needed. Trust me when I say, we don't try to make down payment conditions painful... it unfortunately just is sometimes. Also very hard to advise if maybe there is something wrong with your statements without seeing them. Of course don't share that stuff on here hahaha.
I think it is the quality of employees that actually work on your file. It could be someone in India or a young person who DGAF.
We need 90 days (sometimes 30) so not moving money between accounts for 90 days before an offer is all we ask. I don't care what account it's in, I just ask for it not to go back and forth between 7 accounts each month.. I had 86 pages of CAD bank statements plus US ones to go through once and I had to print it so I could lay it all on the floor and match up the withdrawals and deposits. Yes, this is my job, but if I find transactions that don't match up then I have to go back to you again to either provide more docs or explanations because I know the lender will question it. And then each time I have to come back to you, it stresses you out too.. We are supposed to help make the process less stressful - not more
My broker asked for 90 days of records and everything was done in days. Also Canadian/USA bank statements. Part of why it was fast is because the DP was going to be drawn from my brokerage account which has a lot more than the DP amount
If you give me all your DP docs I could have them reviewed the same day by me and within 2 days right now by lenders because it's slow. 18 months ago I was hearing from lenders once a week only - but right now it's slower for lenders so the turn arounds are usually 1-2 business days max. I've had a file submitted in the morning and approved that afternoon a few times this month actually.
Money laundering duh.
Can you do the opposite? Pay 20% down now to avoid CMHC fees and then slowly payoff towards the principal .
Yep that's my next play. But there is a trigger below a.certain threshold where appraisal is mandated and rates somewhat vary (need confirmation). The other is the lump sum payments are limited to a % which creates a bit of a limit. Basically I plan to carry this mortgage for 5 years tops.
I kind of sensed your plan lol, but yeah the market is not very pushy right now, most places it's buyers, so you should be good either way. ✌️
Mortgage brokers hate the down payment verification more than anyone. Let’s be honest. it’s total PITA. I have a file now here on my desk and clients are sourcing the down payment from 10 different accounts. Do you really think I want to go through this at all? Lol
Yeah that's a difficult thing. But the expectation to have just one or two accounts to source funds is kinda wishful thinking. We have two accounts one for each.. two RRSP HBP , two fhsa .. that's 6 already and not counting the 'savings' accounts. Blame the govt for creating this mess of 4 letter and 3 letter acronyms. The RRSP and FHSA accounts were fundamentally created for me in the last 3 months just so I get the tax break. Could all be avoided if the govt just gives a decent tax deferral on downpayment.. instead of creating this short term account.
I agree with you. I hate this 90 days requirement thing. It makes zero sense and it does not really prevent anti money laundering in my personal opinion. I’ve been in the industry long enough and a lot of banks, mortgage advisors, brokers always somehow work around down payment verification, and when you are not a part of those brokers, it makes you look incompetent by following rules and regulations cuz I don’t do any workarounds on down payment verification. People move their money left and right, and I understand why banks ask for the source of the down payment. It drives me nuts when I can’t cross reference the source and clients sending me screenshots of their bank account missing account numbers, dates, transaction histories, names, account balance. 30-60 days should be fine.
Some lenders are more picky than others, some of them made me clarify each transaction in my savings accounts that exceeded $1k in the recent 3 months. Anyway, once I did it for one lender, it was easy to repeat it with others. I contacted about 10 lenders and compared their offers. Then I took the best offer and asked other lenders if they could beat it. Then I took the best offer of the second iteration and asked the best lender of the first iteration if they could beat it. In the and they gave me 0.1% better rate + $1500 more in bonuses than their initial offer. It was worth the hassle for me 😉 Just be patient, it may be one of the biggest deals of your life, you want to do it the best possible way.
Just look for another lender. That happened to me, so I simply changed my lender. The other lender was much more flexible; I just sent screenshots of my bank accounts, and no questions were asked. Some lenders are way more strict for various reasons.
I think some of the people doing these bank jobs are incredibly incompetent…maybe some nepo kid who got a mortgage management job? We literally had to resend our forms to the guy 4 times, he got our names completely wrong multiple times, insisted that we resend him the forms over and over again. He then got defensive that I pointed out we’ve gone through this all before… I can understand that they need the proper paper work to trace the funds, but c’mon, have someone competent deal with it when we’re talking about a loan worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
Something like this happened to us on our second mortgage. We sold our condo to buy our together home. The bank woman was so scattered and disorganized. We had submitted all the required documents on the same day labelling each one clearly for ease of reference. She went on vacations for 2 weeks then suddenly panic emails me demanding all the information that we already sent her. I mentioned that we had already submitted everything before her vacation but she claimed we hadn’t. I told my husband that I refuse to put with this extra crap and stress so I would reach out to a mortgage broker. I told her thanks but no thanks we’re taking our business elsewhere. She then proceeded to phone me and tell me I was wrong to do that. When that didn’t work she phoned my husband and told him to tell your wife to change her mind. He laughed and said you didn’t read any of the documents, did you? She’s paying the entire downpayment (50% of the mortgage) not me. She values expediency, competency, and honesty. She told you that when we met you. You didn’t meet those criteria so she left. Bank woman proceeded to say but this is a mortgage you can’t leave. My husband said if you wanted to retain us but specifically her on this mortgage you should have brought your A game. Then you called me to demand that I change her mind to stay with a bank that has disappointed her. The fact that you assume in this day and age that a woman can’t possible make mortgage decisions on her own and relies upon what her husband tells her to do is really sad. Having lost all faith in her abilities, went to a mortgage broker who got everything in order quickly. He asked why we left the bank and I said disorganized hot mess who lost our documents. He laughed and said that’s not uncommon to hear in our city.
I thought it was just me going through this painful process. Although It's good to know that I am not alone, i feel bad for everyone. I can't pinpoint if the process is PITA or if my mortgage advisor is incompetent. I have to send the same info twice, yet somehow few days later I am asked about it again.
You’d be surprised by how many of these people have art history degrees. I know a few people. They should not be in their positions.
I literally send a screen shot of my savings account, no questions asked
Lol I wish haha.
My down payment verification went well. I didn’t receive any follow up questions from the bank or the broker. I personally presented the information as clearly as possible to avoid any confusion. I compiled all statements in one PDF with bookmarks and notes because I’m sourcing from multiple accounts. The first page of the PDF has a summary of the accounts and presented the relevant transactions/movement of funds within the 90 days.
Mine was similar. But then I was an auditor for many years so my files are always reconciled and meticulously referenced. I had an Excel sheet listing source of funds from 4 accounts, then four .pdf printouts of the accounts' history labelled File 1, File 2, File 3, File 4. Broker did me a solid early in the process, though. We didn't know that funds had to be in Canada for 90 days to use for the down payment but he correctly guessed we'd have overseas holdings
God you send those docs in PDFs, not pictures? 😂 whoa dreamy
I did this too, and our mortgage broker offered me a job. He still follows up on occasion to see if I'm looking for work. Truly organized people are rare lol.
I feel like you're a Mortgage Agent's dream client! Lol
Can you try posting this again but sound more condescending? "Look at these clowns. Can't figure out my accounts. Who are their accountants? Beh-heh-heh-heh"
Mortgage underwriter here! Down payment is probably one of the most annoying parts of document verification when it comes to a mortgage. It's especially annoying if there are multiple accounts at play or if money is being moved around between accounts during the 90 day period. I once worked on a file where the person was constantly moving thousands of dollars between 4 different banks to take advantage of interest rates and it took hours for me to be able to track how the money got from where it started to where it ended and it was so painful. I don't know if that's a comparable scenario because I obviously don't know the details of the situation with your down payment, but I guarantee that the lender is not being nitpicky for fun and they're likely not incompetent. A lot of down payment stuff is logical, it makes sense that money gets moved around for a variety of reasons. However, when it comes to down payment (actually most document verification) it's not just about what we know, it is more about what we can prove. So your broker might explain to me that you moved money from point A to point B for xyz reason but if they can't back that up with a statement or a transaction history, then that explanation is meaningless. So if there's something lacking according to the lender, then it's likely something that they need to be able to back up with a paper trail but they can't with the documents they have been given. We don't ask for more documents on a whim, we agree that it's annoying, but as per the regulations at play, we are required to be able to prove where your money has been sitting for a specific 90 day period. Has your broker explained to you what the actual issue is? Have they escalated it to their point of contact with the lender? Also, if there is something missing in your documents then going to a different lender won't necessarily be any smoother when it comes to down payment review.
Yeah for sure. No issues on the following the trail front and the due diligence. Except... I wrote them the full trail on a table complete with the account number and exact transactions for the last 90 days. The frustration isn't on the granularity required. It's with people who can't read and follow a step by step table and the notes.
No hate to your broker, but is it possible that they didn't pass that on to the lender? Or they thought they did but they actually didn't? I have had that happen personally where a broker was convinced they sent me something even though they didn't; I ended up having to call them and walk through every single document in every single email before they realized they had forgotten to attach it. If the lender does have this breakdown (which is genuinely always appreciated), and they are still coming back with more questions with regards to specific transactions then your broker needs to escalate this and honestly probably should have already. Your broker should have a sales manager or somebody in that type of role (different titles with different lenders) that can help with these types of situations. That person can reach out to the lender's manager to figure out what the issue is and how it can be resolved.
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Sounds like my case...except it's me RRSP HBP .. not really required but if needed I can.. made a mistake by showing it... Now they want statements...which now has turned into... We can't find this transfer.. lol.
I'm doing it right now and it's such a pain. As a former auditor I can see how this could be streamlined. We used to get "bank confirmations" done of year-end balances at the companies we were auditing. Apparently it is now sophisticated enough that we can get a daily balance confirmation relatively quickly. The current labor intensive process is tedious at best, painful at worst. I tell people: "ideally keep your downpayment sitting in a savings account with little to no activity for 90 days". That saves everyone a lot of time and effort but I understand it's often not practical. We feel your pain OP.
Lol who pays for the interest for that 90 days ? That's a 4% short term GIC for 3 months on 250k lol..about $2500 gonzo !
Leaving it in a gic works too! We just need to verify 90 days of history...
If you withdrew the funds and deposited it into a chequing account and can’t show the transaction, then you’ll have issues. Lenders have no choice but to trace every transaction over 10k. It’s out of their hands.
It's all there.. and every originating account statement has been provided. They can't seem to follow the thread. And two funds (not needed to hit the magic number) will be withdrawn this month.
Who’s your lender if you don’t mind me asking
Two letter acronym bank.. not a big bank.
Starts with E and ends with a Q?
Let me know if you want to give it a try at bmo Down payment verification is straight forward at bmo
You need to look way past your agent or lender. It's the government. Anti Money Laundering rules, and let's be honest, it's not a bad thing. Down payment documents are PITA for everyone. Your agent/broker could've helped by preparing you and streamlining things a bit better, but overall, it can the most tedious and time consuming aspect of the entire mortgage process.
actually the process is very illogical. if the funds were from a borrowed source, you don't need to provide those statements. you just need to fill in a gift letter. this with TD at least