That’s not been my experience in Canada. Royal Bank has been very easy to work with and the paperwork has always gone through smoothly.
Our last mortgage was a pain in the ass, too, but I think our problem was a mortgage broker, too. We had used him twice before with great results; the third time, we think he had gone insane or something - it was like a completely different person who couldn’t find his ass with both hands. We ended up paying a huge fine for closing out the mortgage early (in spite of buying another house and wanting to stay with the same bank, Scotiabank), after being assured that there would be no penalty if we stayed with the same bank. He messed up the interest rate guarantee on our pre-approval, too, as well as being difficult to get ahold of and taking forever to respond to emails.
This is pretty much exactly what they are experiencing.
We’ve had good service with our mortgages as well (in Canada). I told dad to use RBC, as they do US mortgages as well, but he went for the lowest interest rate (WF) instead. I hope it all works out, but it’s a big cluster at the moment.
Pssst: credit union (and numerous other threads).
Seriously.
They will refinance existing auto loans, even if the loan is WITH THEM; I did thisa couple years back because I got sick of seeing a “refinance NOW!!!” link whenever I logged in, so I applied… Since the existing loan was with them, they said I had to take an extra 500 dollars out on the car (e.g. existing was 9K, I had to borrow 9500). I immediately paid the 500 dollars back against the car, and finished off the loan that much faster.
/hijack
In my somewhat limited mortgage experience, there are no good companies, only good mortgage agents. Most of the time, you’re not really dealing with (or shouldn’t be dealing with) the monumental juggernaut of a company. If you have a good agent, then it’s super smooth sailing (as it was with me during my previous mortgage with WF). If you get a buffoon, or don’t have an agent for whatever reason, it can be super awkward.