Answers › A, B & Private Lending
How do I get from a private mortgage back to a bank?
Answered by Rajiv Verma, Mortgage Broker · Reviewed 13 August 2026 · About a 3 minute read
The direct answer
You move up a tier at a time, and the plan is made before the private mortgage is placed — not at the end of it. A private mortgage is a one or two year arrangement. Its purpose is to buy time to fix whatever caused the problem — a credit issue, an income documentation issue, a temporary disruption. Once that’s resolved, the file moves private to B, or B to A, depending on the situation. If nobody has told you what has to change and by when, you haven’t been given a plan. You’ve been given a loan.
THE SHORT VERSION
- Private is short term — typically one to two years
- The exit is designed at the start, not discovered at the end
- The route is private → B → A, one step at a time
- What has to change is usually credit, income documentation, or both
- A good lender wants you gone — that’s alignment, not rejection
Why private lending is short by design
A private mortgage isn’t a cheaper product you settle into. It’s expensive, and it’s meant to be temporary.
That’s also true from the lender’s side. A MIC isn’t looking to hold you for a decade — it wants to lend, be repaid, and lend again. A lender who wants you gone in eighteen months wants you to improve, which is exactly what you want too.
So the question that matters on day one isn’t what’s the rate. It’s what has to be true in eighteen months for this to be over.
What actually has to change
If credit was the problem
Payments made on time, every time, for the length of the term. Utilisation brought down. No new applications scattered around. A clean run of twelve to eighteen months moves most files up a tier — and the mortgage itself, paid properly, is part of that record.
If income documentation was the problem
Another year of returns. A business that’s stabilised. Cleaner books. Sometimes it’s as simple as the file being presented correctly the second time, to a lender who reads gross income rather than net.
If it was a one-off disruption
A separation, an illness, a business interruption, a period between contracts. These are the easiest exits, because once the disruption is behind you the file often looks entirely normal again.
The ladder, not the leap
| Step | Typical timing | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Private → B | One term | Clean payment history, situation stabilised |
| B → A | One to two terms | Credit re-established, income documentable to bank standard |
Most people try to jump straight from private to a bank and get declined. B lending is the bridge, and skipping it usually costs more time than using it.
When the exit doesn’t happen on schedule
Being straight about this: sometimes it doesn’t. The business takes longer to recover. The credit rebuild slips. The market moves.
That’s a reason to talk early, not a reason to avoid the conversation. A renewal negotiated three months ahead is a very different situation to one addressed three weeks before maturity.
And if the honest answer at the end of the term is that another year is needed, that’s a plan too — as long as it’s a decision rather than a drift.
When a private mortgage is the wrong move entirely
When there’s no realistic exit. If nothing is going to change in two years, an expensive short-term mortgage just moves the problem and adds cost to it.
When the payment doesn’t work today. A plan that depends on nothing going wrong isn’t a plan.
When selling is the better answer. It isn’t what anyone wants to hear. Sometimes it’s still true, and I’d rather say it than arrange a mortgage that delays it by eighteen expensive months.
What to do next
If you’re in a private mortgage now, the useful question is where are you against the plan — and if there wasn’t one, we can build it from where you are.
If you’re being offered one, ask what the exit looks like before you sign. A straight answer to that question tells you a lot about who you’re dealing with.
Related questions
- What is a MIC or B lender, and how is it different from a bank?
- What’s the difference between a MIC and a private individual lender?
- What happens if I can’t make the payments?
Answered by Rajiv Verma, Mortgage Broker · Mortgage Architects — FSRA Brokerage Licence #12728 · Licensed in Ontario · Office 289.505.0631 · Direct 647.291.7116
General information about Ontario mortgages — not financial, legal or mortgage advice. Timelines vary by lender and by file. Every file is reviewed individually.