Ben Rabidoux of The Globe and Mail encouraged the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to increase their mortgage documentation specifically on the income of the potential home owners in order to lower the risk of fraud.
Currently, insurers leave most of the documentation on mortgage underwriting to the lenders. Neither do they make it a practice to strictly check on data submitted by borrowers. The CMHC’s standards for the latter are pretty lenient compared to their U.S. counterparts, requiring nothing more than a pay stub and a letter signifying employment for a prospective home owner to secure a mortgage.
These lax standards open the door for fraud, cautions Rabidoux in his column. As the CMHC is a Crown corporation, any such damage that can happen will inevitably trickle down to the Canadian taxpayer.
