Start with these, every time
Send these first and the application goes in right the first time.
- Two recent pay stubs
- A letter of employment
- Two years of T4s and notices of assessment, showing nothing owing
- Two pieces of ID, front and back
- 90 days of history on the down payment, with the source of any large deposit
Property tax notice: only for a property outside Vancouver, Surrey and Delta. For those three cities we pull it in-house.
What each kind of borrower adds
The ID and down payment items above still apply; these are the extras.
Self-employed
In place of pay stubs and an employment letter, the lender reads your tax history.
- Sole proprietors: two years of full T1 generals and notices of assessment
- Incorporated: the same, plus two years of company financials
Construction
The lender is financing a building that does not exist yet, so the paperwork describes the build and the builder.
- A budget on the lender's template
- The builder's contract
- The plans
- The builder's résumé
- Your own résumé, on a spec or commercial build
- The corporate records, when a company owns the property
Commercial
The list depends on the type: owner-occupied, investment, land or construction. One item is on every list.
- A personal net worth statement
- The rest we list for you after the first call, once we know the property
What delays an application
Most delays are not refusals. They are a lender waiting on one page. These are the ones we see most.
- A notice of assessment with a balance owing. Lenders want to see nothing owing, so clear it, or bring proof it is paid, before we submit.
- A large deposit in the 90-day history with no paper trail. A gift letter, a sale record or a transfer receipt explains it.
- ID copied on one side only. Both sides, both pieces.
- A pay stub or letter of employment that is no longer recent by the time the lender reads it.
- A construction budget in your own format. Lenders advance draws against their own template, so we start there.
- Company financials or corporate records that arrive after the application has gone in.
We check every document before the application goes to the lender, so a missing page is caught here and not at the lender's desk.