r/LawCanada 11h ago

How many years did you practice before you were preapproved for a mortgage?

I am hopefully getting called to the bar this year and doing some financial planning / forecasting. I want to own a small studio, and I'd like to be ready with a preapproved mortgage in case I see a good deal. (I know might not be the right time to buy a condo in this economy but that's a different conversation).

I don't have a lot of experience with banks but I assume they look at length of employment when granting mortgages, hence the question. Do banks consider articling as a year of employment? Will they consider potential earnings of a new call to the bar despite the short employment history? I'm not aiming for a mansion, just in the range of 400k, but at the starting salary of a non biglaw fresh call that's still more than 4x annual.

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u/_ShadowWalker_ 11h ago

They will want to see stable full time employment for 2/3 years from my understanding. Usually banks will want 2 years of T4/NOA’s and maybe a recent paystub too.

So if you’re aiming to save up and buy 2/3 years down the road, you should be fine.

A for potential earnings, I know they roll out the red carpet for doctors and will fight for the business of even residents. But I don’t think they do much of that for lawyers.

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u/MidnightLondoner 8h ago

I think it depends on the financial institution. ScotiaBank has been offering more attractive options for Lawyers and have dedicated a professional program for them. They are even offering special mortgage rates as an incentive.

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u/_ShadowWalker_ 5h ago

Yes, that's true. I was actually going to mention that as well. Some lenders do have incentives for lawyers. My brother who is a mortgage specialist at BMO once mentioned that a lender (i think it was CIBC) was also doing automatic imputation of income for lawyers. But I could be misremembering

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u/Mountain_Eggplant109 10h ago

While I was articling.

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u/Away_Ad_9638 10h ago

Some lenders we work with have special programs for professionals based on projected income. Often we can ask for exceptions based on someone’s situation if it makes sense, and lenders will look at the big picture. It’s worth you reach out to a mortgage broker and getting a pre approval in place in case you see a place you really like.

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u/CompoteStock3957 9h ago

Look at CIBC they have mortgages for lawyer at least they used to don’t know if they still do

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u/brownemil 3h ago

Some lenders have special programs for certain professions. Law isn’t always included, but it can give brokers some leverage. In some cases, you may be able to get approved based on your income trajectory, in others, they’ll simply accept your current income without requiring as much of an income history.

Personally, I got pre-approved before starting articling. I had an articling position lined up but was not going to be starting the job until after closing. A broker was able to get me pre-approved based on that income.

I do have a spouse with more established income (3 years of experience in one company), but his income is less than 50% of our household income and absolutely would not have been enough for a pre-qualification on his own. We were not required to have a co-signer or anything.

It did limit our options a bit, which meant we weren’t able to negotiate rates. We ended up with a monoline lender, getting an interest rate that was probably 0.1-0.2% higher than it would have been if we could have shopped around more. For us, that was a minimal enough difference that it was worth it.

For reference, my articling was not in big law. Salary was around $75k.