Stage 10 of 10
Owning it
Two things actually move the numbers over time: maintaining the building before it fails, and negotiating your renewal instead of signing it.
Ownership is a maintenance schedule and a small number of financial decisions repeated every few years. Deferred maintenance compounds faster than interest. And roughly two thirds of Canadians sign the renewal their lender mails them, which is the most expensive default choice available to a homeowner.
Your progress in this stage
0 of 7 ticked, 0% weighted. 1 critical task is still outstanding.
Weighted, not counted: a critical task is worth 5 optional ones.
Outstanding, and each one can cost you the deal
- Start shopping your renewal four to six months out · You
Work backwards from closing
Closing day is the only fixed date in a purchase. Give it to us and every outstanding task in this stage gets the date it has to be started by, using the slow end of each stage's range.
Anything from Aug 28, 2026 onwards. A closing sooner than a week away is not something a lawyer and a lender can complete.
Critical
Skipping one of these can cost you the house, the deposit, or five figures.
- CriticalYou120 days
The offer your lender mails you is an opening position, not a quote you have to take. What a switch costs or saves you is set by your own mortgage's maturity terms and by the rates you are quoted, so read that clause and put both rates through the renewal comparison rather than trusting a figure somebody published.
Important
Skipping one costs money or leverage, not the deal.
- ImportantYou365 days
Spring: roof, gutters, grading, air conditioner. Summer: exterior paint and caulking, trees. Fall: furnace service, gutters again, winterize outdoor plumbing. Winter: watch for ice damming and check the attic for condensation. Budget a reserve for it every year: the ownership statement in this app sizes one as a fraction of what the building costs to rebuild rather than as a fraction of the price, because what wears out is the roof and the furnace and not the land under them.
- ImportantYou30 days
Assessments are mass-appraised and errors are common: wrong square footage, wrong lot, a finished basement you do not have. There is a deadline to file a request for reconsideration, and an over-assessment costs you every year until you fix it.
- ImportantYou365 days
Construction costs have moved faster than most policy limits. Being insured for what you paid rather than what it costs to rebuild is a gap you discover at the worst possible moment.
- ImportantYou90 days
A plumber you have used before answers on a Sunday. A stranger prices an emergency at whatever the emergency is worth to you, and you are in no position to get a second quote. Find a plumber, an electrician, an HVAC contractor and a roofer while nothing is broken.
Worth doing
Nothing breaks if you do not.
- Worth doingYou1 day
Most mortgages allow a lump sum and a payment increase each year without penalty. Early in the amortization, extra principal removes a disproportionate amount of interest. Whether it beats investing the same money depends on your rate and your alternatives, so run both.
- Worth doingYou60 days
Very few renovations return their cost at sale. Kitchens and bathrooms come closest; pools and high-end finishes rarely do. The honest reason to renovate is that you will use it, so budget it as consumption and get three written quotes.
What goes wrong at this stage
Each of these is common and each one costs money or a house. The consequence is stated in dollars or in what you lose, because a warning without a number is a warning people skip.
Signing the renewal letter your lender mails you.
You have accepted the first number offered in the one negotiation of the year that costs you nothing to have. Whether that number was competitive is knowable only by getting a competing quote in writing, and the difference between two rates compounds every month of the term.
Instead: Start shopping four months before maturity, get a competing offer in writing, and take it to your lender.
Deferring maintenance because nothing has failed yet.
A roof replaced on schedule costs a roof. A roof replaced after it leaks costs a roof plus insulation, drywall and sometimes mould remediation, which can double or triple the bill, and your insurer may decline a claim caused by deferred maintenance.
Instead: Replace on service life, not on failure. Put the dates in a calendar and save toward them.
Using a home equity line of credit for consumption.
You convert unsecured spending into debt secured against your house, at a variable rate, with your home as the consequence of default.
Instead: Reserve secured borrowing for things that hold value, and keep an emergency fund in cash so you are not forced into it.
Hiring unlicensed trades for electrical or gas work to save money.
Uninspected work voids insurance claims arising from it, must be corrected before you sell, and can kill someone. There is no version of this that is worth the saving.
Instead: Verify the ESA licence for electrical and the TSSA certificate for gas, and pull the permit.
What you sign and receive
A document marked binding commits you. Once it is signed you cannot change your mind without losing money, and in Ontario a resale purchase has no cooling-off period at all.
Property assessment notice
The assessed value your municipal taxes are calculated from. It comes with a deadline for requesting reconsideration, and it can be wrong.
Mortgage renewal offer
Your lender's proposal for the next term. It is an opening offer, not a fixed price, and you are free to leave at maturity without penalty.
You are finished with this stage when
- You have a seasonal maintenance schedule and you follow it.
- You know your mortgage renewal date and you start shopping four months out.
- You review your property assessment when it arrives and appeal if it is wrong.
- You know your prepayment privileges and whether using them is worth it for you.