The Devil In The Fine Print
www.canadianmortgagetrends.com
Mortgages sometimes have costly or irritating restrictions that you won’t know about unless you read the fine print or ask a mortgage professional.
Some examples:
- Restrictions on breaking your mortgage before the term is up
- Restrictions on breaking your mortgage for the first 3 years
- A penalty surcharge of 1% for mortgages broken within the first 12 or 36 months
- “Reinvestment fees” (on top of mortgage penalties)
- Interest rate differential (IRD) penalties based on an onerous bond yield calculation
- IRD penalties on variable-rate mortgages (usually IRD penalties apply to fixed mortgages)
- IRD penalties based on a costly posted vs. discounted rate formula
- Inability to port unless the purchase and sale take place on the exact same day (which can be hard to arrange)
- A poor conversion rate guarantee
- No refinances during the first year
- No free switches (for transfer-eligible mortgages)
- Amortization limits of 25 years
- Minimum amortizations of 15-18 years
- Restrictions on converting from a variable rate to a fixed rate for the first six months
- No ability to break your “open” HELOC without a penalty
- Inability to port across provincial lines
- High administrative fees when porting
- 100% clawback of cash-back if the mortgage is broken before maturity
- Requirement for a full banking relationship with the lender
- No lump-sum pre-payment privileges
- No annual payment increase allowance
- Pre-payments restricted to one specific day a year (instead of any payment date)
And the list could go on…
Keep a lookout for restrictions like this when comparing different mortgages.
It’s even more important when sizing up cut-rate mortgages because the lower the rate, the greater the likelihood that a mortgage will be somehow restricted.