First National Fixed Mortgage Consumer Reviews

This company is currently offering very low interest rates to new customers during Covid-19, which is great for those new customers. But anyone who is forced to sell during this time is finding that their penalties for ending their term early are being jacked WAY up to make up for the low interest rates being offered to new customers.

I contacted them for information about the extra lump sum payment. They gave the amount and said it should be arranged with your next payment date and we need a day ahead notice... Fine.
I called ahead a day to arrange the payment, but they say too late we need 3 days to process the payment and they postponed my payment to the next payment 2 weeks later. Not flexible landers and no wonder all these people have a problem with them. Stay away!

I was happy for the first three years when I did not have to interact with anyone with this company and I could see everything about my mortgage on the online dashboard.

Then, I needed a title change when my partner and I split. They re-asked for documents over and over, asked for new information throughout the process, sent the wrong information for lawyers and also ‘made a mistake’ that my lawyer caught, which was that instead of a title transfer they had set it up for my mortgage to be cancelled and for me to have a new one. This would have meant higher interest rates and thousands in additional lawyer fees for things like a title search.

After 3.5 months of trying to get this sorted (thankfully my ex and I are on good terms) we decided to sell and forego the title transfer process. I notified First National of my plan and then put my house for sale and applied for a mortgage with a different company. A month later I get a call that my mortgage is delinquent and I have missed two payments. I was confused because the money is always in my account and I don’t pay a lot of attention to it.

After a long conversation, the agent admitted that it was because they had set an internal deadline (unbeknownst to me) on the title transfer being complete and suspended payments on their end expecting the mortgage to be paid out (which it never would be with a title transfer). I told them “okay, that sounds like that is on your end. Please take the money out of my account today.”

Done right? Nope! I asked if this would impact my credit score and no one could tell me for sure! I told them I needed to know because I am in the process of buying a new house. Their answer? Oh well, you said you’re preapproved so your credit score wouldn’t be impacted until after that goes through. You should be fine. Excuse me?! Your mistake, my credit - new mortgage or not.

So now, I made them promise in a written confirmation (always get everything in writing from them) that if this impacts my credit score they will be in touch with the credit bureau to make sure it gets fixed. But after all this, how do I trust that?

I would NEVER trust this company to work with again.

This is the worst place to get a mortgage. First, they agreed on a down payment amount and fixed interest rate.
Then after a week that we signed the papers with them, they said we had to increase our down payment by $16,000 (????) because of the “stress test”. But we had agreed already on a down payment amount! We don’t have that kind of money laying around. Then they said that we had to change to a variable interest rate in order to keep the down payment we had agreed on. Like seriously they say one thing and a week after they are asking us for money we don’t have!!!
Also, they kept asking for so many documents every single day. And for a letter of employment at least 4 times. Not a good company. Very unorganized. Do not recommend it!

I have had a mortgage with First National for over 9 years. The only reason I renewed was out of convenience. I will NEVER sign another mortgage or renewal with them again, and I absolutely do not recommend going with them.

When it comes to contacting their mortgage specialists for any sort of request or matter, I have personally found them to be unresponsive, slow, and rude. I recommend going with a big 5 bank as they have a more mature and better-trained customer care team (and if you think they're bad, just wait until you have to deal with any sort of time-sensitive issue with First National).

This company was terrible to deal with and caused so much stress. They were still asking for new paperwork on the closing day even though the mortgage was arranged 6 weeks before closing.
We arranged bridge financing for 4 days and I was shocked at all of the hidden fees. $250 just because; $100 to register a mortgage on the old property; $100 to release the mortgage on the old property; $150 in extra legal fees plus interest. It was the most expensive 4-day loan I could imagine.
They changed the mortgage conditions twice 3 days before the closing date.

They make it very complicated to make additional payments and pay off your mortgage sooner...

First National is terrible at communicating and you have to contact them through email or phone.

I have been trying to contact anyone in this company for past over 2 months. I had opened 5 requests where they promise to contact me back in 2 business days. However, this never happened. I receive a confirmation email for each request, and that is the end of the story. On one occasion, I received a call 1.5 months since opening the first ticket asking me to call back. Being on another call, I was unable to answer but I returned the call 2 minutes later. And then left 4 voicemails to the same person over the next two days. That is a long time ago and still nothing. Stay away from this company, the customer service is terrible. My next steps will be re-financing in a different institution and forgetting about this incompetent company forever.

When we signed on with First National they said the penalty was 4 months interest but it turns out they have a catch that they can base it on the rate differential of the mortgage - whichever is greater so instead of $4000 it’s 14000. These guys are terrible!
Go with anyone else if you can!