The client
A household buying in Fort McMurray with clean, stable income and a purchase well inside what their income could carry — on the numbers a first lender actually used, which turned out not to be the household's real numbers at all.
Borrowers
Combined income $8,000/month
Stable T4 employment
Purchase
$410,000, Fort McMurray
10% down; property tax $320/mo, heat $120/mo
The card in question
Current balance $1,150
“High credit” field on file: $9,200, from a five-year-old expense
Other debt
$300/mo vehicle loan
unaffected throughout
The problem
Every Canadian credit bureau carries two different numbers on a revolving account: the credit report's current balance, and a separate “high credit” (Equifax's term) or “high balance” (TransUnion's) field — the highest amount the account has ever carried, going back as far as the bureau has recorded it. The two are not the same figure, and reading one for the other is not a small error.
What the file was built on, before anyone checked which field it was
- ▸The card's own “high credit” field, from a one-time expense five years earlier: $9,200
- ▸The lender's own convention for an estimated minimum payment on a revolving account with no reported scheduled payment: 3% of whatever balance figure it pulled
- ▸Applied to $9,200, that convention added $276/mo to total debt service — on a card the household had carried at a few hundred dollars for over a year
Nothing about the household's spending had changed. The card's own five-year-old peak, sitting quietly in a field most reviewers never open, was doing all the damage.
The numbers
The mortgage structure itself was never in question. Every point of difference in this file came from which of the card's two balance fields was used.
| The insured loan | Amount |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | $410,000 |
| Down payment (10%) | −$41,000 |
| Base mortgage (90% LTV) | $369,000 |
| CMHC premium — 3.10% in the 85.01–90% LTV band, capitalized | +$11,439 |
| Total insured mortgage | $380,439 |
| TDS line | As first submitted | Corrected |
|---|---|---|
| Payment at the qualifying rate (6.65% on a 4.65% contract), 25 years, plus tax and heat | $3,023 | $3,023 |
| Vehicle loan | $300 | $300 |
| Estimated card payment, 3% convention | $276 (on the $9,200 high-credit field) | $34 (on the $1,150 current balance) |
| Total debt service vs. the 44% cap | 45.0% ✗ | 42.0% ✓ |
The $276 was never a payment anyone was making. It was 3% of a number the card hadn't carried since before the file existed. Once the reviewer confirmed which field the $9,200 actually came from, the household's real card payment — on its real, current balance — added $34, not $276, to total debt service.
The solution
A RECA-licensed Alberta mortgage associate went back to the raw bureau file rather than accept the first lender's summary number.
First, identified which field the $9,200 actually was. It wasn't a balance the household owed; it was Equifax's own “high credit” field, a historical peak the bureau keeps on every revolving account regardless of how old the peak is or how long the account has run well below it.
Second, pulled a current statement to confirm the real number. The card's actual balance, current to within the statement cycle, was $1,150 — not close to the $9,200 the first lender's system had used.
Third, resubmitted with both figures side by side — the bureau's own field label next to the current statement — rather than simply asserting the number was wrong. A reviewer can verify a labelled field faster than they can take a broker's word for it.
The outcome
Approved and funded: insured at 90% LTV, 25-year amortization, 5-year fixed term. Total debt service settled at 42.0% once the card's real, current balance replaced its five-year-old peak in the calculation — a six-point-plus swing that came entirely from which bureau field the reviewer opened.
Alberta has no land transfer tax, and the land-titles registration fee is not consistently published across offices; closing costs here were legal fees and standard adjustments, confirmed against the lawyer's trust ledger rather than quoted as a fixed figure.
What to take from this file
- 01A revolving account's “high credit” or “high balance” field is a historical peak, not today's balance. Confusing the two can add a phantom monthly cost to total debt service that the household hasn't actually carried in years.
- 02A percentage-of-balance convention is only as good as the balance it's applied to. 3% of the wrong number is still the wrong number.
- 03A current statement settles the question faster than an argument does. Showing the reviewer exactly which field produced the disputed figure moved this file in one round, not several.
- 04This is a reading error, not a credit problem. Nothing about the household's own behaviour needed to change or be explained — the file needed the right number from the report it already had.
Sources
Every regulatory figure in this file traces to one of these primary sources. Client details and anything that varies by lender are illustrative, as flagged below.
- ▸CMHC — Purchase (Mortgage Loan Insurance) — default-insurance premium schedule by LTV band (25-year amortization).
- ▸CMHC — CMHC Home Start — minimum down payment tiers (5%/10%) and the $1.5M insured price cap.
- ▸OSFI — Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages — the minimum qualifying rate — greater of contract rate + 2% or 5.25%.
- ▸CMHC — CMHC Reviews Underwriting Criteria — GDS 39% / TDS 44% maximums and the 600 credit-score floor for insured files.
- ▸Provincial/territorial mortgage-broker legislation fetched directly (bclaws.gov.bc.ca, legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca, fcaa.gov.sk.ca, web2.gov.mb.ca, nslegislature.ca, assembly.nl.ca) plus FCNB's own site for NB and CanLII's index for PE — see notes for per-province method — provincial mortgage regulators and licence titles.
Illustrative in this file — lender-specific, not rules:
- ▸4.65% contract rate — rates move daily; not a quote.
- ▸$320/mo tax and $120/mo heat estimate — lender-standard estimates, not rules.
- ▸the 3%-of-balance minimum-payment convention — the percentage used for revolving debt with no fixed payment varies by lender.
Authority & provenance
How this case file was built
We publish the origin, the verification method and the reviewer for every case file, so you can judge how far to trust it before you rely on it with a client.
Where it comes from
Derived from files handled by Treadstone’s fulfillment desk and from scenarios contributed by partner brokerages. Names, employers, exact amounts and dates are changed so no client or file is identifiable.
Provenance: Composite — a pattern seen repeatedly on fulfilled files, not a single transaction.
What is verified
Every regulatory figure traces to a primary source listed above and was checked against it on the date shown. The arithmetic is recomputed by machine on every rebuild.
Anything that varies by lender is labelled illustrative rather than stated as a rule.
Who reviewed it
Reviewed for Canadian regulatory accuracy before publication, and re-checked whenever a cited rule changes.
Reviewed by: Nicholas Parson, Treadstone Associates — reviews every case file before publication.
This case file is professional reference material for licensed mortgage professionals. It is not advice to a borrower, and it is not a lender commitment. Insurer rules, qualifying rates and provincial taxes change — confirm the current position with the insurer, regulator or lender before you rely on any figure here in a live file.