Transcript of Video Blog:
Hi, everybody. Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center. I want to talk today about self-employed people and what the banks want to see from you in terms of the income documentation.
Like everybody else, they want to see notices of assessment to prove that you’re filing your income-tax, as in you have no arrears, and they want to see how much your filing on there.
But what about somebody who’s been a plumber for 25 years and finally decides to go out on their own. They go out on their own and they’re making way more money, but they’ve only been doing it for a year and a half.
Here’s the thing, that’s a tricky situation for a bank. The bank wants to see that you’ve got a two-year track record of income. But if you were employed back then and now you’re self-employed, how do they make the connection?
Now, not all banks, but several of them have a much more open idea here. What they’ll do is they’ll look at your historical earnings as a plumber, or whatever your job was. As long as you transitioned into self-employment in the same industry doing the same thing they’ll use an average of income over those years, including your start-up years, but also including your years as a salaried employee.
This is particularly important for a guy who’s been self-employed for only one year but has been doing something for 25 years. Often times they move to self-employment not because they were foolish but because they saw there was a lot more money to be made if they were the boss rather than just collecting a salary.
So, if you know somebody in this circumstance, someone who’s been told, “You haven’t been in business long enough,” but they’ve been doing the same job for a very long time, have them contact me. It’s Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center.
