Last Monday, TD Bank made an announcement that set the mortgage industry a buzz. It sparked immediate debate calling into question the integrity of the bank and how it would effect borrowers. Essentially, what TD has done is figured out a way to prevent borrowers from leaving them during the entire life of the mortgage. The lack of any kind of noise or finger pointing from other financial institution gives me the creeps. It appears that they are sitting on the sidelines smacking their lips to see if the stunt actually works.
Garth Turner is a prolific blogger on The Greater Fool where he shares his sometimes crass but always highly entertaining thoughts about real estate, money, and the road ahead. For this post, I will implore his post Pricks which very accurately explains why TD’s move is bad for borrowers:
Starting last Monday the bank is registering all its new home loans as collateral mortgages, rather than conventional ones. If you have no idea what that means, you’re normal.
A collateral mortgage is a loan which is backed by a promissory note which is in turned backed by security. A conventional mortgage, as you know, is just a loan secured by a house. Normally the only people who are asked to sign collateral mortgages are folks who use their houses to arrange lines of credit with balances that can balloon, not a regular mortgage with a fixed amount owing and a standardized payment.With a conventional mortgage there are strict rules about how much you can borrow determined by the value of the property when you take the loan. Not so with a collateral mortgage, because it’s actually a loan which is backed by your promissory note. That means you can borrow more than your house is worth.
Yes, just like those old fast-talking Ditech.com TV commercials offering American homeowners mortgages worth 125% of their home’s value – the ones we used to snicker at. Well, giggle no longer. TD is now shopping 125% collateral mortgages.
In fact, bank customers (I’m told) are being encouraged to ‘register’ for 125% mortgages when they sign up, even if they don’t need all that money. It’s just there, the pitch goes, if you ever need it. Kinda like a built-in line of credit you don’t need to reapply for.(Of course, it should be lost on nobody that the bank just found a way around guidelines on loan-to-value ratios.)
OK, so much for the conservative Canadian bankers part. But it gets better. For the bank.
With a conventional mortgage it’s your house backing the loan, which means transferring a mortgage is simple, and can be done for a couple of hundred bucks. But collateral mortgages cannot be transferred, since they’re more akin to personal loans. That means one must be discharged and a new mortgage arranged elsewhere if you want to move. Since that can cost thousands, not hundreds, it pretty much ensures you won’t.But it gets even better. For the bank.
With a conventional mortgage, if you miss a payment there are standard procedures, which involve catching up in a timely fashion and maybe having to pay for a lawyer’s letter. But the terms of the loan remained fixed. Miss a collateral mortgage payment, however, and the bank has the right to slap you around with the imposition of a higher interest rate for the life of your loan. Just as the bank is registering these things with 125% principal amounts, so too is it registering interest rates as high as prime plus double digits. Just in case.And it gets better. Guess for who?
When a collateral mortgage renews, and you don’t like the rate being offered, you can’t just walk away and get another bank to lend you the money to pay TD off. Instead, the collateral mortgage/promissory note – which is registered (like a car loan) under PPSA – needs to be discharged legally. And you pay. Or you capitulate and stay a bank customer. Additionally, a borrower may find the collateral mortgage gives the bank the right to dip into any of their other bank-held assets if they happen to miss a payment or two.
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