How Friendly is Your Mortgage Company?

Posted by admin on November 21, 2007 in Real Estate

This week’s real estate Wednesday post deals with my mortgage company: Firstline Mortgages. Firstline Mortgages is owned by CIBC but, once upon a time, was an independent mortgage company. Considering that your mortgage may run upwards of 20 years, it is pretty important that you have a mortgage company that you feel comfortable dealing with. Let’s face it- if you have a half-decent credit score, you can eventually get a financial institution to match the lowest mortgage rate you can find shopping around; so, a low rate should not be the differential given it can be found with enough effort. But it is the customer service with the mortgage company that will make a difference.

Firstline Mortgage is my mortgagee by accident; I am a life-long TD man but my mortgage broker found FirstLine which has friendlier underwriting practices for self-employed individuals. So, it feels a bit like being forced into a date with your friend’s cousin- they may be a nice person but you didn’t pick them per se. Without further ado…

The Good

Friendly towards self-employed borrowers (friendly being a relative term)
Well trained customer service reps

The Bad

Their on-line system frequently crashes and looks and feels about a generation old
Their back office infrastructure doesn’t appear very reliable. If you call them, their customer service reps are good but they have to ask about 3-4 people about why something isn’t working.

As I have previously mentioned, I use to practice law and did several real estate closings. Firstline did lend to my clients several times so my comment about poor back-office infrastructure is partially attributed to my experiences with them in another context (and various colleagues grumbling about them). Thinking back, Firstline and BMO had back-office issues, Scotiabank and TD were good (Scotiabank had a particularly good on-line system), B2B very bureaucratic and all the B lenders just generally a pain to deal with (I guess they have to be control freaks given that their borrowers were not the safest of risks). B2B is especially problematic because they administer a lot of mortgages in RSP’s and they are really the only game in town for these types of products so you are really stuck with them.

Anyone have any good/bad experiences with their mortgage company?

3 Comments on How Friendly is Your Mortgage Company?

By Traciatim on November 21, 2007 at 8:49 am

My mortgage is also through Firstline. Though I used a broker and I haven’t talked directly to Firstline that much. They gave me acceptable terms, a descent interest rate at the time, and I haven’t had any problems as of yet. I would say I’m pretty impartial to what company is lending the money as long as the terms meet your needs. Maybe my tune will change if there are ever any problems with the pre-authed payments or I have to contact them to get something resolved or updated.

By Mortgage Broker on November 25, 2007 at 9:13 pm

A lot of times it’s kind of hit and miss. There is often so much turnover in customer service at lenders that it depends who’s working the phones that particular day. I usually tell my clients that if there’s any hassle whatsoever, just give me a call. Taking care of their pre-payments, payment frequency adjustments, etc. is a service I (and most other mortgage planners) are happy to provide.
Cheers, Melanie

By Unhappy FirstLine Customer (but thankfully not for much longer) on October 5, 2011 at 10:42 pm

Most of the FirstLine call centre personnel are unhelpful. They only have a virtual office and heaven help you if you are late on one payment. I have perfect credit and always pay everything on time, but I missed one mortgage payment and WOW, never knew anyone could be treated like such garbage. To anyone looking to get a mortgage, I would NOT recommend dealing with FirstLine. They are impersonal and do not meet in person with clients so are out of touch with the reality that their clients are humans and not just figures on paper. Good indication of their corporate values; customer service is certainly not a priority.

In December 2010 (effective June 1, 2011) the Aussies banned mortgage discharge penalties. I plan to write my MLA, the Finance Minister, the Prime Minister and the President of both FirstLine and their parent bank (CIBC). My situation is that I had a 40 year amortization period (now not allowed in Canada because it was found to be usury) and after 4 years I have only paid off 3/4 of the CMHC fee, nothing on mortgage principle, and discharging the mortgage one year early FirstLine is insisting I pay a fee of approximately $10,000 though they have the ability to waive it. They already made $66,000 off me in interest. Isn’t that enough?!? Then there’s the added slap that the market fell and on a house I purchased for a little over $300,000 (to help a struggling family member with small kids) I have to come up with almost $100,000 on top of the proceeds to close. How are penalty discharge rules like this helping Canadians? Oh I get it, usury practices line bank executive pockets and help investors make a better return while the little guy gets squished — how less Canadian can they get?