For a subject property with no rental history, a lender typically requires an appraisal that includes an estimate of achievable market rent, based on comparable rented units in the area. Canada doesn't use a single standardized national rent-schedule form the way some other markets do, but a rental analysis or opinion of rent is a routine part of a Canadian appraisal when the lender requests one for an investment purchase or for a secondary suite in an owner-occupied property.
The appraiser's figure reflects comparable market rents at the time of the appraisal — it is not a signed lease and not a guarantee. Vacancy, tenant turnover, and local rules (including rent-control provisions in some provinces) mean the rent actually collected over time can differ from the appraiser's estimate. That gap between achievable and guaranteed is part of why lenders run the figure through add-back or offset rather than counting it at full value.
A rental worksheet is the calculation sheet — sometimes on paper, sometimes digital — where the actual math happens. The inputs are the gross rent (from the appraisal or from the T776/lease covered in Module 01), the applicable treatment percentage, the subject property's own carrying cost, and the borrower's other income and debts. The output is the borrower's final GDS and TDS with the rental treatment folded in.
This is the practical trap worth naming directly. Once a rental property's carrying cost is being handled through the worksheet — whether by add-back or offset — it should not also be entered a second time somewhere else in the application, such as a general "other real estate owned" debt schedule. Double-counting a rental's carrying cost is one of the most common ratio errors new agents make, and it can make an otherwise-approvable file look declined purely on paper.
Brokers who build a simple version of the target lender's worksheet before submitting — mirroring whichever family, add-back or offset, that lender actually uses — catch double-counting errors before an underwriter does. It also makes it much faster to re-run a file for a second lender using a different method, instead of starting the whole calculation over from a blank page.
A broker lists a rental property's full mortgage payment under "other properties owned" AND lets the lender's rental worksheet also deduct that same payment through the offset calculation. What's the most likely result?
Double-counting a debt is a real and common ratio error — the worksheet is meant to replace the raw carrying-cost entry, not sit alongside it. The "underwriters always catch it" option is the tempting but risky assumption; a busy underwriter may simply decline the file on ratios without diagnosing why, leaving the broker to find and fix the error after the fact rather than before submission.
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